This year’s winter season has gone well so far – this was also due to the strong increase in bookings during the semester holidays. Between November 2023 and February 2024, overnight stays in hotels, guesthouses and holiday apartments increased by 4.9 percent to 50.6 million compared to the same period last year.
Only around 11 million of these overnight stays were by domestic holidaymakers – an increase of just 3.6 percent.
The number of overnight stays exceeded the 50 million mark in the four-month period for the first time since Corona. This means that tourism this year performed better than in the comparable period of 2018/19 (49.6 million overnight stays), but worse than 2019/20 (53.2 million bookings) just before the pandemic.
18.9 million overnight stays in Tyrol
The majority of bookings in the 2023/24 season so far have again taken place in the state of Tyrol, which is most popular in winter – the number of overnight stays there rose by 3.8 percent to 18.9 million. Salzburg is in second place with 11.6 million nights booked (plus 3 percent). This was followed by Vienna, where city tourism recovered noticeably by 14.7 percent year-on-year to 5.2 million overnight stays.
Holidaymakers come in larger numbers, but for shorter periods
While overnight bookings increased by almost 5 percent, the number of guest arrivals noticeably increased further by almost 7 percent to 13.8 million.
In the busiest winter holiday month of February alone, bookings increased by 5.7 percent. “The semester holidays in Austria, which were spread over three dates, and the winter holidays in neighboring countries increased the number of overnight stays in hotels, guest houses and holiday apartments to 18.5 million in February 2024,” said Tobias Thomas, Managing Director of Statistics Austria.
Germans and Dutch love Austria
Tourism in February was mainly driven by holidaymakers from abroad. By far the strongest group of guests from abroad were the Germans with 6.4 million bookings, followed by the Dutch with three million overnight stays. Domestic holidaymakers booked 3.5 million nights (plus 2.3 percent).
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.
