Demand for Overnight Stays in Austria in 2024 Higher Than Before the COVID-19 Pandemic

Despite the difficult environment (war in Ukraine, inflation), the recovery of the Austrian tourism industry is progressing rapidly after overcoming the pandemic. In 2023, only 1 percent of the 2019 overnight stays were missing across Austria, although there were major regional differences: while Styria already recorded 3.3 percent more overnight stays than in 2019, there was still a gap of 4.4 percent in Lower Austria. Demand recently developed particularly dynamically in Vienna (January to September 2019-2024 +5.1 percent), where the slump was most drastic during the pandemic years. Although the increase in demand across Austria is associated with growing nominal revenue (2023 +16.8 percent compared to the previous year, 2019-2023 +10.3 percent), if the high inflation rates of recent years are taken into account, revenue in 2023 was still 14.9 percent lower than in 2019 – an indication that guests are paying more attention to their budgets despite the unabated desire to travel.