Austrian tourism industry sees best summer season in over 20 years

The Austrian tourism industry has seen its best summer season since 1994 with 69.4 million overnight stays recorded, Statistics Austria revealed in preliminary results on Friday.

The figures come in 2.2 million, or 3.3 percent, higher than the same season in 2014, as recorded from May to October. The majority of the overnight stays were recorded in the main holiday months of July and August, during which a 4.5 percent year-on-year increase was seen.

The overall number of visitors also increased 6.3 percent to a record 21.85 million, almost 1.3 million more than in 2014. This was marked by an increase in both foreign and domestic tourists, with increases of 7.5 percent and 3.9 percent respectively.

Germans were once again the most important source country of foreign guests, making up about 25 million overnight stays both for business and leisure, and marking a 0.4 percent increase over 2014.

Other strong source countries with improved visitor rates were the Netherlands (3.7 million overnight stays), Switzerland (2.7 million), Italy (1.8 million) and Britain (1.3 million).

Statistics Austria said from the beginning of the year until October, 120.1 million overnight stays have been recorded, an increase over 2014 of 3.4 million and just below the record of 120.38 million over the same period of time in 1992.

Minister of economy Reinhold Mitterlehner said the results are good news for the wider business community, for which tourism is an important mood indicator, and that he is also expecting a successful winter season. Enditem