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18. 11. 09. - 16:00

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18. 11. 09. - 16:00

Vienna tourism had record month

By Thomas Hochwarter

Tourist stays in Vienna hit an all-time record in October after months of poor figures, Vienna tourism bosses have announced.

Tourism authorities said today (Weds) there were 935,000 overnight stays in the capital last month – 0.2 per cent more than in October 2008.

They said the number was a record for Vienna.

Overnight stays between January and October 2009, were down 4.6 per cent to 8,219,000 but officials said this had been because of the  European Football Championship last year when Vienna hosted several matches, including the final, and huge numbers of visitors flocked to the city.

Statistics for last month also show double-digit increases in numbers of tourists from the US, Japan, France and Great Britain, while numbers for visitors from Russia, Germany and Austria shrunk year on year.

Tourism bosses highlighted soaring visitor numbers for people from countries which are not key markets for the city’s tourism industry such as Norway (plus 69 per cent), China (plus 56 per cent) and India (plus 33 per cent) which gave the October statistics an extra boost.

It was also announced that all hotel categories apart from four-star facilities saw an improvement in booking figures last month.

Earlier this month, Vienna hotels were ranked twelfth in a major international survey in which travellers gave their view on services provided by 13,000 hotels in 50 European cities.

Hotels in the eastern German city of Dresden topped the poll, with Salzburg hotels coming in fourth.

Online hotel listings platform Trivago considered specific characteristics such as room amenities and a hotel’s environment for their study based on 2.7 million overall reviews.

Austrian Times

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