Only slightly below the pre-pandemic level of summer 2019
Vienna – According to preliminary results from Statistics Austria, the 2022 summer tourist season (May to October) in Austria recorded 77.88 million overnight stays in Austrian accommodation establishments. This corresponds to an increase of 17.3 % compared to the summer season of the previous year.
“This summer, tourism in Austria was again able to match the record overnight stays of 2019: with 77.88 million overnight stays, the 2022 summer season was only 1.4 % below the pre-pandemic summer of 2019 with 78.93 million. At the same time, even after the lifting of most corona-related travel restrictions, almost one-third of overnight stays this summer were attributable to guests from within Austria,” said Statistik Austria Director General Tobias Thomas.
More than two-thirds of overnight stays were attributable to guests from abroad
Of the total overnight stays in the period from May to October 2022, 31.2 % were attributable to guests from Austria, 1.7 percentage points more than in the summer 2019. 68.8 % of all overnight stays were attributable to guests from abroad, 1.7 percentage points less than in summer 2019. Compared to the 2019 season, guests from Germany recorded an increase of 5.6 % with 31.15 million overnight stays, while the second most important country of origin, the Netherlands, recorded an increase of 7.1 % with 4.25 million overnight stays. On the other hand, the markets of origin in Switzerland and Liechtenstein (2.36 million) and Italy (1.5 million) recorded a decline of 11.5 % and 13.3 % respectively. Guests from the US spent 18.9 % more nights in Austria in the summer 2019 than in 2022 (1.06 million).
The largest Asian market of origin in Austria in the 2019 summer season was China with almost 1 million overnight stays. This summer, overnight stays fell by 93.7 % to 60 500 compared to 2019. Overnight stays by guests from Japan also fell massively (-85.3 % to 45 400).
Tourism demand by accommodation category has changed significantly compared to the 2019 season. In particular, commercial holiday flats generated a total of 7.51 million overnight stays in the 2022 summer season, an increase of 29.2 %, while overnight stays in the 3-star and 2/1-star hotel categories declined by a total of 8.3 %.
More than 8 million overnight stays in October 2022
In October 2022, the last month of the summer season overnight stays increased by 3.9 % to 8.33 million compared to October 2021. The number of overnight stays by foreign guests rose by 9.5 % to 5.37 million, while overnight stays by domestic guests fell by 4.8 % to 2.96 million. More than half (64.5 %) of the total overnight stays are attributable to foreign guests.
