The Austrian accommodation establishments were unable to recover from the effects of the corona pandemic in the previous year and even recorded a significant decrease in the number of overnight stays compared to 2020.

According to figures published by Statistics Austria on Wednesday, there were 79,57 million overnight stays last year. In the first year of Corona, Austrian companies still had 97,87 million overnight stays. Before the pandemic, there were 152 million overnight stays. The hotel industry thus fell back to the level of 1970 in the previous year.

"The fact that the number of overnight stays in 2021 continued to fall compared to the horror year 2020, clearly shows that we need targeted support more than ever," comments Susanne Kraus-Winkler, Chairwoman of the Hotel Industry Association in the Austrian Economic Chamber. "These dramatic declines, which can be attributed to the long-lasting business closures from January to May 2021 and November 2021, clearly show that there is great uncertainty and extremely cautious booking behavior even after the lockdowns have ended."

While in the first year of the corona pandemic (2020) the turnover of the overall economy in Austria fell by 6,4 percent to 781 billion euros, tourism had a much worse situation with a minus of 34,9 percent to 19,3 billion euros to cope with development. Unfortunately, there is no end in sight to the downward trend. Because according to the current sales tax advance returns for the accommodation and catering sectors, both sectors together recorded a minus of 2021 percent from January to October 37,2, in 2020 it was -27,1 percent.