Austrian winter tourism season on track to set visitor records

The current 2015/2016 winter season in Austria has broken records for both overnight stays and overall visitor numbers, Statistics Austria revealed in preliminary figures on Tuesday.

The statistics office said overnight stays between November and February have increased 1.7 percent to 47.1 million, while visitor number increased 3.5 percent to reach 12.45 million, with the months of March and April still to come.

German visitors were as usual the most important for the domestic tourism industry, their guest numbers increasing 1.6 percent for the first four months of the winter season, while other increases in guest numbers were noted from Great Britain (6.5 percent increase), Switzerland and Liechtenstein (5.8 percent increase), and the Czech Republic (7 percent increase).

Overnight stays from domestic guests also increased 2.3 percent to reach 10.5 million.

In response to the figures Austrian tourism minister Reinhold Mitterlehner said they showed Austria is "attractive and competitive," and particularly for the important month of February showed it was the number one winter sport destination in Europe.

The only blips on an otherwise successful season have been a large 28 percent drop in overnight stays from Russian visitors, as well as a 5.4 decrease in those from The Netherlands, despite a 4.3 percent increase in Dutch visitor numbers. Endit