Starting with the year 2000 and taking into account the requirements of the EU Regulation on Tourism Statistics and meeting National Regulations, surveys are conducted on holiday and business trips with at least one overnight stay. Every quarter a representative sample of 3 000 individuals living in Austria (15+) are questioned about their travel behaviour. The interviews are carried out by means of computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI).
In 2019, 5.8 million individuals living in Austria (15+) undertook at least one holiday trip within Austria or abroad. This represents a travel intensity of 77.8%, with15 to 24 year olds being the most avid tourists (travel intensity: 87.4%), and persons aged 65 and older travelling less (60.6%).
Overall, in 2019, 5.8 million enthusiastic tourists from Austria undertook 21.2 million holiday trips within Austria and abroad; half of the trips were domestic (52.5%). While the average length of stay was 3.3 nights for domestic holidays, holidays abroad averaged 6.6 nights. Accordingly more overnight stays were spent at foreign destinations (64.7%) than within Austria.
The most popular foreign travel destinations were Italy (20.9%), followed by Germany (16.6%), Croatia (9.6%) and Spain (5.7%).
Peak travel time was the 3rd quarter of 2019: this period (July - September) accounted for a total of 7.0 million (33.2%) of all holiday trips, with significantly more main trips with a minimum duration of four nights (58.6%) than short vacation trips (1 to 3 nights). A further 5.6 million holiday trips (26.6%) were made in the 2nd quarter of 2019 (April - June). The least holiday trips were made in the 1st quarter of 2019 (January - March: 4.1 million vacation trips; share 19.4%) and in the 4th quarter of 2019 (October - December: 4.4 million vacation trips; share 20.8%). In these two quarters significantly more domestic holiday trips were undertaken than trips abroad: 67.2% (1st quarter) and 56.6% (4th quarter) of all trips were spent in Austria.
The most popular means of transport remains the car: 62.9% of all holiday trips were made by car, for domestic travel the proportion (78.7%) was even higher. Considering holiday trips abroad, the aircraft (37.5%) was in second place after the car (45.4%).
Hotels and similar establishments were most often chosen as accommodation (54.2%) on holiday trips, followed by private accommodations free of charge (28.5%). For domestic trips the use of private accommodations free of charge (35.8%) is significantly more than for holiday trips abroad (20.4 %).
Overall, 1.5 million individuals living in Austria (15+), undertook at least one business trip within Austria or abroad in 2019. This corresponds to a business travel intensity of 19.5%.
In the year 2019, 3.6 million business trips were undertaken. Less than half of the business trips (50.3%) were abroad and 76.1% of the business trips lasted no longer than three overnight stays. Most business trips abroad went to Germany (48.4%), followed by Italy (8.8%) and Switzerland (3.1%).