Vienna recorded around 6.6 million visitor bednights between January and June 2016 – about 4.9% more than in the same period the previous year.
“Vienna demonstrated its tourist attraction in the first half of 2016 with an increase of 4.9% to some 6,640,000 visitor bednights,” according to Norbert Kettner, the Vienna Tourist Board’s director.
Vienna’s most important source markets in the first half of 2016 were Germany with 1,382,000 bednights (+8% on the same period the previous year), followed by Austria (1,370,000, +10%), the USA (367,000, +6%), Italy (316,000, -4%), and the United Kingdom (295,000, +24%). Places 6 to 10 were taken by Switzerland (213,000, +2%), Spain (177,000, +13%), France (173,000, +5%), Russia (157,000, -28%) and China (121,000, +9%).
The city also recorded strong growth compared to 2015 from India (56,000, +39%), the Netherlands (111,000, +16%) and Turkey (80,000, +13%). Vienna currently has about 63,400 hotel beds, and its hotel rooms had an average occupancy rate of 67% from January to June 2016.
Around 80% of all bednights were accounted for by international guests. “This not only reflects Vienna’s continued attractiveness, but also shows that our systematic internationalization strategy of diversifying into many different markets is paying off,” explains Kettner. Vienna’s objective now is to increase bednights to 18 million by the year 2020. Congress tourism will also play an important role here, accounting for 12% of the total volume of bednights in 2015. Some 3,700 congresses, corporate events and incentives were held in Vienna last year – a new record.
