Holidays in Austria are heading for a record year this year

Tourism in Austria is booming this year. In August, the most important month of the summer season, overnight stays in hotels, guesthouses and holiday apartments rose by three percent to 21.07 million compared to the same period last year. From January to August 2024, 115.63 million overnight stays were counted, an increase of 1.7 percent compared to the same period last year.

“This is the highest result ever recorded for the first eight months of the year and exceeds the previous record from 2019,” says Tobias Thomas, Director General of Statistics Austria. Guests from abroad accounted for almost three quarters of the overnight stays in August. The top guests were the Germans, ahead of the Dutch and the Italians. The increase in German guests even amounted to 4.1 percent. A decline of 6.5 percent was recorded among the Dutch.

There was a significant increase in guests from China with an increase of 86.7 percent, although at 70,000 overnight stays it was still at a relatively low level.

In the federal state ranking in August, Tyrol led, ahead of Salzburg, Carinthia and Vienna. In the first eight months of this year the ranking was Tyrol, Salzburg, Vienna and Carinthia. In general, Vienna is the federal state with the strongest increase in guests. In August the increase was 11.3 percent and from January to August 9.8 percent.

“Tourism offers itself as a miracle weapon against the recession,” says Walter Veit, President of the Austrian Hotel Association. To do this, however, the labor market potential at home and abroad must be awakened.

“Each of the 90,000 officially open positions in the country could be filled three times by unemployed people,” claims Veit. “But if politics cannot motivate them to work, applicants from third countries are waiting to stimulate our economy.” Although there are 9,000 job vacancies in tourism, the seasonal quota for applicants from third countries is only 4,495 people. Veit: “That is completely incomprehensible. This number is completely made up and has nothing to do with economic reality.”