The travel habits of the Austrian resident population are surveyed by means of a quarterly sample survey.
The survey provides an important basis for tourism reporting. Detailed knowledge of travel flows, their characteristics and the profile of travellers and non-travellers is necessary to be able to identify, evaluate or compare changes in travel habits. The results are also used as a basis for tourism or marketing policy measures.
The Republic of Austria is obliged by Regulation (EU) No. 692/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European tourism statistics and the Tourism Demand Statistics Regulation BGBl. II No. 301/2003 and BGBl. II No. 25/2012 to collect information on the travel habits of the Austrian resident population.
The results, which are anonymised and compiled into statistics, are regularly published on our website. Research institutes may request anonymised data for scientific purposes. The Statistical Office of the European Community (Eurostat) receives an anonymised data set for statistical analyses.
Statistical confidentiality and data protection are among our most important principles. Comprehensive data protection information is available in our data protection sheet.
A data collection of all people in Austria is not possible because it would be too time intensive and, above all, cost-prohibitive. Therefore, a sample survey is carried out - by means of which the entire population living in Austria is to be represented as accurately as possible. The selection frame is provided by the Central Register of Residents (ZMR); the addresses are drawn at random and the telephone numbers are taken from the public telephone directory (Herold). The aim is to interview 3 500 people between the ages of 15 and 85 who live in Austria.
Participants are informed via letter that they have been selected for either the telephone or the online survey, i.e. following the letter, you will be contacted either via telephone (interview) or by means of an online questionnaire.
Even though participation in the survey is voluntary, it is of great importance to achieve the highest possible response rate in order to be able to guarantee the representativeness and thus quality necessary for the compilation of statistics.
The data collection on the travel habits of the Austrian resident population is conducted quarterly, always in the following month after the reference period has ended (e.g. the survey on travel habits in the 1st quarter is conducted in April–May). The exact period of the survey is communicated accordingly in the letter (advance notice).
Telephone studio: available on weekdays from 4.00 pm–8.00 pm
If you are selected for the telephone survey and prefer to be called at a specific time, you can state your preferred time at reisen@statistik.gv.at. We will do our best to call you at that time! We also ask you to give us your (new) telephone number (by e-mail to reisen@statistik.gv.at) so that we can reach you!
We ask you to keep records of your trips available if possible, especially regarding travel expenses (total costs of the trip, costs for transport, accommodation, other expenses for goods and services on site), to keep the interview as short as possible.
Even if you did not travel during the relevant period, this information is important to us as well, so please participate in the survey if this applies to you.
The first part of the questionnaire is about your holiday and business trips with overnight stay in the reporting quarter (e.g. 1 October 2022 to 31 December 2022). The departure of the trip must therefore have taken place between 1 October 2022 and 31 December 2022. The second part is about your day trips without overnight stay between October and December. Even if you did not make any trips during this period, we ask you to participate in this survey if you were drawn into the sample.
Holiday trips are all private trips outside the usual environment (direct living environment as well as place of work). This includes visits to relatives and friends, trips to the secondary residence and other trips for recreational or leisure purposes. Business trips include all trips outside the usual environment that are made for professional or business purposes.
In addition to the profile of domestic and trips abroad (length of stay, destination, month of departure, travel reason and purpose of travel, accommodation, organisation, means of transport and expenditure), the profile of travellers and non-travellers (socio-demographic characteristics) is collected.