Austria Marks Beginning of Winter Tourism Season With 4.9 Million Overnight Stays
The number of overnight stays in Austria in the month of November has increased by 49.5 per cent compared to the same month of last year, thus marking a positive beginning of the winter tourism season in the country.
Data released by Statistik Austria, which is Austria’s Federal Statistical Office, an agency responsible for collecting and publishing official statistics in the country, show that a total of 4.88 million overnight stays have been recorded in the country in the month of November.
Commenting on the data, the Director General of Statistics Austria, Tobias Thomas, said that this November was the third highest in value, just behind November 2018 and 2019, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“After drastic losses in two Corona winters, Austrian tourism started the winter season this year with 4.9 million overnight stays in hotels, guesthouses and holiday apartments in November. In 2022, the third highest November value was reached after 2018 with 5.23 million and 2019 with 5.30 million overnight stays,” he said.
The statistics also show that the number of guests recorded this November in Austria exceeded the number marked in November 2017 by 0.8 per cent.
Regarding the origin market of tourists, data show that over half of them are from outside the country, or 2.85 million of them, which is 57.1 per cent more than in November 2021.
The list is led by tourists from Germany, who, with 1.15 million overnight stays, accounted for 40.4 per cent of the total number of overnight stays, or 33.5 per cent more than in November last year.
The numbers for tourism in November are following the trend of the summer months in Austria, after two years of the pandemic, during which travel and tourism in the country was brought to its knees.
Data by Statistik Austria for that period show that from July to the end of September 2022, there were recorded 9.09 million holiday trips by Austrian nationals with at least one overnight stay, including here visits to relatives and friends. This is an increase of 14 per cent more than in the previous year, with 7.97 million trips and 29 per cent more than in the pre-pandemic summer of 2019, with 7.04 million vacation trips.
At the same time, the proportion of people aged 15 and older who took at least one holiday trip between during the summer months by seven percentage points to 63.1 per cent or 4.81 million travellers.
Travel intensity also increased during this season compared to the summer of 2019 before the pandemic, when it was 57.6 per cent.
>> Austria Gets Hit by First Effects of Schengen Veto – Romanians Start Cancelling Their Trips
