Tourism Regains Strength Despite Persistent Inflation

With the expiry of the COVID-19 related measures from February 2022, tourism demand in Austria picked up steadily. In 2022, the demand from international guests remained weaker than that of domestic travellers (overnight stays –13.1 to –2.7 percent, overall 10.3 percent; all compared to 2019). While the gap to the pre-crisis season almost closed in summer (–1.4 percent), there were still considerable shortfalls in the winter months of 2022 (January to April 2019-2022 –23.0 percent, November, and December 2018-2022 –5.8 percent). In winter 2022-23 (November 2022 to April 2023), the shortfall in overnight stays shrank to 4.9 percent. Although the overnight demand in summer 2023 could even exceed the peak of the 2019 season (overnight stays +1.5 percent; estimate) and 2023 could thus achieve the second-best annual result after 2019 (–1.5 percent), persistently high inflation and the weak economic performance in Austria and other European countries, especially Germany, are likely to dampen household spending noticeably.