Domestic tourism has almost fully recovered from the pandemic. With 69.29 million overnight stays, the 2022/23 winter season (November to April) was almost as well booked as the last corona-free winter of 2018/19. This is according to preliminary data from Statistics Austria from today, Friday. Compared to the same period last year, which was still affected by Covid restrictions, overnight stays rose by almost a third (31.4 percent) this year.
In the period from November 2022 to April 2013, the number of guest arrivals increased by 45.5 percent to 18.94 million compared to the previous year. “Despite price increases, 69.29 million overnight stays in Austrian hotels, guesthouses and holiday apartments from November 2022 to April 2023 were the third highest in a winter season after the record winters of 2017/18 and 2018/19,” summarizes the Director General of Statistics Austria together Tobias Thomas.
Only five percent below the record value
Specifically, bookings for the just ended winter tourist season were just 3.63 million overnight stays or five percent below the previous record for the 2018/19 winter season (72.92 million) – in winter 2017/18 there were 71.87 million overnight stays. reaches.
The majority of bookings (53.46 million) came from foreign holidaymakers in the winter of 2022/23 – an increase of almost 35 percent on the previous year. The number of domestic overnight stays increased by 22 percent to 15.82 million.
Germans are the most frequent guests
Most overnight stays in local accommodation establishments came from travelers from Germany. Compared to last winter, they rose by 25.8 percent to 25.73 million.
In the case of the Netherlands, the second most important country of origin after Germany, there was an increase of 20 percent to 6.70 million overnight stays. Bookings from Switzerland and Liechtenstein rose by 58.7 to 1.87 million, those from Italy by 154.2 percent to 984,100.
Inflation keeps prices rising
This shows that the demand from important countries of origin such as Germany, the Netherlands and partly Great Britain is “all the way back” and “that that is partly not true, that skiing is no longer so topical”, according to the State Secretary for Health, Welfare and Sport. Tourism Susanne Kraus-Winkler (ÖVP) on Friday in a press conference.
According to them, the accommodation providers will continue to raise prices this summer. “We expect it to return to an average of 10 percent,” she said, in view of the expected inflation in this area. Last summer there were already increases of an average of 13 to 14 percent in accommodation, and “slightly less” in gastronomy.
Booking growth also in Asia
This winter, after two years, bookings from the largest Asian market of origin, China, increased again. The increase was around 211 percent to 89,600 overnight stays.
In April, the last month of the winter tourist season, the number of overnight stays increased by 8.1 percent to 8.19 million compared to the same month last year. Of these, 5.78 million travelers were from abroad (+10.6 percent) and 2.41 million were domestic guests (+2.4 percent). The number of arrivals increased by 16 percent to 2.68 million.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
