Hoteliers optimistic – winter holidays: good booking situation, prices are rising

Companies are cautiously optimistic that a good winter is coming. “It looks good for December, for the pre-season when the snow comes, and also for Christmas, New Years and also into mid-January, and I dare not make a prediction for longer than that.” the chairman of the Austrian Hotel Association (ÖHV) on Monday in the afternoon newspaper “Ö1”. Veit stressed that high inflation and climate change are the industry’s biggest problems. Prices are rising enormously.

Higher energy costs
However, the higher costs, especially for energy, cannot be passed on by the hotels one-to-one, says Karin Seiler, Managing Director of the Tyrol Tourist Board. So you should reduce the costs in such a way that the guests notice it as little as possible. “Of course the hotels try to act differently, turn down the heating when rooms are not occupied, you look at the ventilation systems, so there are a few things the company can look at that the guest does not immediately notice,” explained Seiler. However, in general, the topic here is again: what can you do, what else can you explain to the guest?

The Carinthian hotelier Hubert Koller has also examined his company for possible savings. It is “actually not necessary if mini bars are running in all rooms when the room is not occupied”, he gave as an example.

The climate crisis has an increasing impact on winter tourism
In addition to the very expensive energy, the climate crisis is also having an increasing impact on winter tourism. According to Seiler, this can already be seen at the start of the season in Tyrol. Ski tourism would no longer be possible without snow cannons. At the start of this year’s Ski World Cup, several races in western Austria were postponed due to a lack of snow.
“If you look at this year — this very, very warm October — maybe the seasons are pushed back a little bit, obviously that’s a big deal for us,” Seiler says. The Tyrolean tourism promoter cannot understand the criticism of the high energy and water consumption of the snow cannons. She points out that the devices have become much more efficient and that snow cannons on ski slopes account for only a fraction of Austria’s electricity consumption.

Researchers put a brake on optimism
The tourism researcher and sociologist Andreas Reiter put the optimistic forecasts for the 2022/23 winter season into perspective, stating “that there are very different studies and forecasts – those that finish relatively well for the winter holidays and those that finish more defensively”. Reiter prefers to put the whole thing in the middle, saying: “We have a challenging environment and consumers tend to react very defensively, including in terms of spending behavior.”

“Consumers are reducing and taking shorter holidays”
He is not concerned about the approximately 10 percent tourists in the small premium or luxury segment. “We have great difficulty and a very defensive consumer behavior, as well as leisure behavior, in the eroding middle class – there’s a small portion that goes up, and a larger portion that goes down,” says Reiter. Consumers wouldn’t forego vacations, “but they’re reducing them – they’re taking shorter vacations, they ‘rate’ the products ‘down’ – instead of 4-star to 3-star hotels – they’re no longer taking the cable car every day, but maybe only two days out of five,” the tourism researcher noted. This is classic crisis adaptation behaviour.

“Skiing Will Decline”
“This is what it looks like in the next one to two years, because we are in a transformation phase.” Skiing in general “will of course be in decline”. A completely different generation is growing up and the products have also changed. “Winter holidays will only be partly devoted to skiing holidays, but a wide ‘assortment’ of activities will have to be offered,” expects the sociologist.