Hoteliers: More bookings, but guests are also more concerned about money

The crucial months are just coming

From an economic point of view, the summer season is “not yet a ‘gmahte Wiesn’,” says Martin Stanits, spokesman for the Austrian Hotel Association. “It is now important to look ahead because the crucial months are coming now.” The industry sees the increase in May and June as positive. “It’s important to get off to a good start,” said Stanits. According to the statisticians, the first two months brought the best result of a summer preseason since electronic records began in 1973/74. “The issue is more the revenue level, the cost increases.”

Apartments are popular

The costs of accommodation providers have risen sharply. Holidaymakers, on the other hand, sometimes switched to one- and two-star hotels: “The biggest plus is in commercial holiday apartments. You look at the money,” reports the industry spokesman.

Overall, the hotels are “well booked, that means they are not fully booked, but they are in a good position,” says Stanits. “If not much happens, it will be a good summer.” The weather is also a certain uncertainty factor in the industry. “But you know that, you live with it.” Bookings are also increasingly coming at short notice.

Bookings are made at short notice

“I know couples who only book when they fly to a city – you don’t dare do that with children; and business travelers don’t do that either, or someone who spends a lot of money on a room,” says the ÖHV spokesman.

“For us, ever shorter notice means that you now book ten days in advance,” says the spokeswoman for the Schlosspark Mauerbach wellness and seminar hotel in the Vienna Woods, Angelica Freyler. Last year it was an average of ten days, before the corona pandemic it was six weeks.

Guests from Arab countries stay away

The majority of overnight stays in local hotels come from holidaymakers from Germany and Austria. There are noticeable changes in the remaining source markets. “For many years we have had the Russians gone, the Ukrainians gone – in some cases the Arab region, Israel and more distant areas that have to go through the flight hubs in the Middle East are also missing,” reported Stanits.

The decline among guests from the Arab region is particularly drastic. Compared to the previous year, there was a decrease of 43.8 percent. The proportion of total bookings in Austria is small, but: “These are guests who leave a particularly large amount of money in the country.” The fact that they are increasingly staying away “of course hurts”.