Winter tourism up 4.8%

The winter season 2011/12 saw a sharp rise in Austrian tourism, both native and from abroad, according to a recent survey of Statistik Austria.

The total number went up by 4.8% to 16.4 million arrivals, despite falling figures for December 2011 and March 2012 due to weather conditions. At the same time, the number of overnight stays has increased by 3.8% to a total of 64.3 million – the second highest figures ever, only exceeded in the 2007/08 season with 1.6 million additional overnight stays.

The statistics also confirm the trend towards shorter holidays, with an all-time low average of four days per guest.

The most significant group of tourists from abroad are traditionally the Germans, with 24.55 million overnight stays in the last winter season, followed by tourists from the UK at 2.05 million, and Switzerland at 2.01 million. All Austrian provinces benefitted from the rise in numbers of tourists, except Carinthia, with a drop of 1.7% to 3.39 million overnight stays.