Despite high inflation and the Chaos of war in Israel and the Ukraine Winter tourism, which is important for the local economy, is expected to perform well this year. “Everything indicates that it will still be a good winter”, said the Secretary of State for Tourism Susanne Kraus Winkler (ÖVP) in conversation with APA. Kitchen and service staff are urgently needed. “Auxiliary staff is not that difficult.”
Winter tourists come “mainly from Europe”. In addition to Austria, these are mainly Germany, Great Britain and Switzerland. “And then we see that the desire to travel is there.” Demand for ski school courses in Germany is stronger than last year, while that in Austria is weaker.
But the large number of smaller source markets is also important. The war in the Middle East that broke out in the Gaza Strip in October could also leave its mark on domestic winter tourism. “At the end of September, we had more than 900,000 overnight reservations from Israel and more than a million were expected by the end of the year,” said Kraus-Winkler.
In general, reservations for hotels, guesthouses and holiday apartments have already started. “I’m optimistic about this winter – the holidays are well booked, but it’s a bit confusing,” the industry expert reported. Apart from Christmas and New Year days, rooms are booked at extremely short notice – depending on the weather and geopolitical developments.
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© Image: Kurier/Gilbert Novy
Climate change as a challenge
“The biggest challenges for the industry this winter are certainly inflation, finding suitable employees and climate change,” explained Kraus-Winkler. There are “strong differences between companies” with regard to the increase in staffing needs, which depends, among other things, on the attractiveness of the company and location.
When it comes to the shortage of skilled workers, she “doesn’t hear people shouting loudly everywhere,” said Kraus-Winkler, referring, for example, to the Austrian Chamber of Commerce’s Hotel Industry Association. However, there are not enough staff this winter either.
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“I have the impression that around 10 percent of employees are missing, in some companies it is 10 to 20 percent, in others it is 3 to 5 percent – and as always, mainly in the kitchen and service.” According to the Secretary of State, it is not that difficult to find assistants.
Thanks to the seasonal quota, up to 4,287 skilled and unskilled workers from third countries can work in Austria. Firstly, only qualified workers can use the red-white-red card, and secondly, only year-round positions can be filled.
The short-term view not only applies to reserves, but also to personnel acquisition. “Companies only get restless at the beginning of December when they don’t have enough employees.” According to information, seasonal operations only begin a week before Christmas. “We will be monitoring this over the next few weeks,” Kraus-Winkler said.
Solid budget
The temporary lack of snow, like at the beginning of the season, is less of a concern for the tourism expert. “The new snow guns can now produce temperatures as low as minus 1 degree.”
In terms of budget, Kraus-Winkler sees her department as being in a “solid” position. According to the federal estimate for next year, 62.715 million euros in tax money are available for domestic tourism, after 65.715 million in the federal estimate for 2023.
The majority of this amount, 30.095 million euros, goes to the national tourism marketing organization Austria Advertising, while 21.24 million is allocated to campaign financing from the Austrian Bank for Hotel and Tourism (ÖHT). “Overall, the budget — adjusted for COVID — has remained the same,” Kraus-Winkler said from her department’s perspective. “Corona is over.”
The budget for 2024 has now been adjusted by almost 45 million euros for COVID expenses, which were still part of the federal estimate for 2023. In 2023, “tourism-specific COVID measures are still budgeted – the protective shield for events in particular still costs 44 million euros”. Funds from the COVID-19 crisis management fund not used in 2023 would be returned to the Ministry of Finance at the end of the year.
According to Kraus-Winkler, the special pandemic funding for the ÖHT of 5 million euros was not completely eliminated in the 2023 federal budget, but only 3 million of it. “Of course, we are satisfied with the budget because we managed to guarantee what we had until now”, stated the Secretary of State. “We also managed to put the pandemic behind us from a budgetary point of view.” There was no inflationary compensation.