Austria harnesses growth

AUSTRALIAN travel agents are in a great position to capitalise on Austria’s popularity, with almost 9% growth in visitor numbers from Australia in 2017.

Hosting 20 Australian and 40 American travel agents at the Austria Destination Summit in Vienna this week, Austrian National Tourist Office (ANTO) Director Australia, Astrid Mulholland-Licht, said Australians spent 390,000 visitor nights in Austria last year, with numbers growing steadily for the past four consecutive years.

Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck continue to be the most popular destinations, but MulhollandLicht said there was great potential for growth in regional areas such as Burgenland and Styria, the Lake District around Salzburg, the Tirol, and Vorarlberg, which the visiting agents would experience as part of the summit.

“We have had some really good growth in places like Arlberg for skiing, and winter has shown stronger growth than summer, with a 60% increase in visitation from Australia,” she said.

The two main reasons for winter growth were interest in skiing and in the pre-Christmas festive atmosphere, which she said Australians found attractive.

“This time of year has become a real highlight for Australian visitors, not just for the Christmas markets throughout Austria, but for the whole ambience. Dec is now the month with the highest visitation from Australia, with 14% of visitors, followed by Jan.”

Mulholland-Licht said official visitor numbers did not include those Australians who came to Austria on cruises, which added a “conservative guess-timate” of around 500,000 visitor nights, with most cruise passengers spending three nights in Austria.