Travel remains part of life: Austria's tourism is booming again!

Travel remains part of life: Austria's tourism is booming again!

The Austrians have proven to be so strong that it even overcome the challenges of pandemic. Oliver Fritz, a tourism expert at the Austrian Institute for Economic Research (WIFO), said that initial concerns about the survival of the industry were unfounded. Thanks to massive state support, which was provided from April 2020, tourism in Austria has remained stable. "There was criticism of a possible overgrowding that is not entirely unjustified," added Fritz, but many companies were able to survive this difficult phase. "The GUV in pandemic often looked better than it did," he noted.

Surprisingly, the statistics Austria show a remarkable recovery in travel behavior for 2022 and 2023, which cannot be observed in most other European countries. While vacation trips return to the level of 2019, business trips in Austria are also experiencing an upswing, whereas you decrease in other countries instead. "In Europe, companies have expanded their infrastructure and are increasingly relying on telephone conferences," said the WiFo expert. This shows that the development towards online meetings, in particular accelerated by pandemic, cannot be determined by this, but not by this, but as a separate trend.

Influence factors on travel behavior

However, the entire travel industry is influenced by current events such as inflation, war in Ukraine and the associated recession. "These numerous challenges will certainly have an impact on travel behavior," says Fritz. Nevertheless, the desire to travel remains strong: "People want to travel, even if they may save on the expenses," he finally notes. These findings reaffirm that travel is still an important part of their lifestyle for Austrians, and they are ready to use the offers that are available to gain new experiences.

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