Austria’s ski resorts miss the Swiss
Published: Friday, Nov 17th 2023, 10:31
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Ski resorts in Austria are also popular with Swiss tourists. Especially after the euro became much cheaper from 2008, they were overrun by skiers from Switzerland. Today, the mountain resorts in our neighboring country are struggling to reach pre-corona pandemic levels.
This is because the competitiveness of Austrian destinations is suffering from high inflation. "With an inflation rate of around 10 percent, prices are now comparable to those in Switzerland," explains a spokeswoman for the Bregenzerwald Tourism Region, which is over an hour's drive from St. Gallen.
Although demand is also increasing again in the Bregenzerwald, the number of overnight stays by travelers from Switzerland is still below the pre-pandemic level. Carmen Breuss from the marketing organization "Österreich Werbung" speaks of an "inconsistent" picture - each region is confronted with a different situation.
Swiss tourists play a role in Austria that should not be underestimated: after the Germans and the Dutch, they account for the third-largest number of overnight stays in our neighboring country.
And the Swiss are more generous than other guests. The Swiss spend around 257 euros per person per day on a stay in Austria; according to the tourist office, the overall average is 205 euros. Most of them (around 60 percent) stay in 4- or 5-star hotels.
The coronavirus pandemic has hit the tourism sector in Austria hard - harder than in Switzerland. Before the crisis, the direct contribution of the tourism sector to national gross domestic product (GDP) was 7.5% in Austria and 2.9% in Switzerland.
During the pandemic, this contribution fell by almost half in Austria, while in Switzerland it only shrank by a quarter to 2.2% of GDP. In 2022, tourism in Austria once again contributed 6.2 percent to GDP.
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