Austria
Intro
Travellers from Austria made 16.1 million outbound visits in 2023, with a total international tourism expenditure of US$15.0 billion.
In 2023, the UK welcomed 337,000 visits from Austria. During the travellers’ visits, their total expenditure was £243.7 million, with an average spend of £723 per person.
Discover visitor behaviour, travel trade insights, detailed data visualisations for this market – and more. The statistics in this market report are collated from a range of sources such as the Office for National Statistics (ONS), as well as sponsored questions and our own research. For further details, see How we source this information.
Visitor characteristics
- Business visitors from Austria are about three times more likely to be male than female.
- 63% of holiday visitors, 91% of visiting friends and relations (VFR) and virtually all business visitors are making a repeat visit to Britain (excluding British expats, within ten years).
- 80% of visitors are Austrian nationals.
- 93% of departing visitors (excluding British expats) say they are either ‘likely’ or ‘extremely likely’ to recommend a visit to Britain.
Popular activities for this market
Dining in a restaurant.
Visiting a pub.
Going shopping.
Explore the inbound data in full
Use our visualisations to see data from this market in greater depth and clarity. Compare annual statistics, and filter by age group, gender, trip duration and more. Includes seasonality, trip purpose and regional spread of visitors to UK destinations. This data is based on the International Passenger Survey, conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
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Perceptions of Britain in the Austrian market
- Austrians strongly associate Britain with heritage and culture.
- Just over one-in-three Austrians associate Britain with scenic natural beauty, but twice this number associate the attribute with Australia and Ireland.
- Very few Austrians consider Britain as a ‘relaxing’ or ‘romantic’ destination.
- 94% of Austrians feel either ‘very welcome’ or ‘welcome’ in Britain (2017).
- Britain is perceived to be only marginally more expensive for a week-long holiday than France.
Global context
Top-level statistics relating to the population, GDP, tourism expenditure and popular destinations for this market. For greater detail on inbound tourism flows from this market to the UK, see our data visualisations.
| Measure | 2023 |
| International tourism expenditure (US$bn) | 15.0 |
| Global rank for international tourism expenditure | 24 |
| Number of outbound visits (m) | 16.1 |
| Most visited destination | Italy |
Key demographic and economic data
| Measure | 2023 |
| Population (m) | 9.1 |
| GDP per capita PPP (US$) | 67,513 |
| Annual average GDP growth over past decade (%) | 1.1 |
| Annual GDP growth (%) | -0.7 |
Caring for visitors
- Austrians like to plan in advance, and detailed information on all activities is very important.
- Especially when on a touring holiday, Austrians are usually looking for accommodation with character rather than standard ‘anonymous’ hotel rooms.
- The environment and sustainability issues are very important to many Austrians, and this may influence their choice of accommodation.
- Austrians tend to eat breakfast early, and are not used to having the option of a cooked breakfast.
- Organic food is very popular, and Austrians appreciate having this option when on holiday.
The leisure and travel trade
- Austria still has a fairly traditional trade structure, and travel agencies (either independent or owned by the major tourism groups) play a fairly strong role.
- The large tour operators research their main season programmes between April and June. Some may visit Britain during this time to contract accommodation and visit new attractions, regions or products to be included.
- The vast majority of trade is based in Vienna.
Access to Britain from Austria
The key routes and transport modes that connect this market with the UK.
| Measure | 2023 |
| Weekly aircraft departures | 142 |
| Weekly seat capacity | 25,924 |
| Airports with direct routes in Austria | 4 |
| Airports with direct routes in Britain | 16 |
- Virtually all visits to Britain from Austria are by air.
- Seat capacity is highly seasonal due to outbound winter sports travel from Britain to Austria.
- 58% of seat capacity serves the Vienna to London corridor as of 2023.
- Following the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, scheduled seat capacity on non-stop flights from Austria to the UK has recovered to 95% of 2019 levels in 2023.
- Those who fly back to Austria from Britain pay £13 in Air Passenger Duty if flying economy.
Further resources
Austria Market Snapshot.pdf
Austria Market Snapshot
Austria market profile.pdf
Market profile of Austria
Where Austrian visitors reside.xlsx
Where visitors from Austria to the UK reside in their own country
How we source this information
We work with a number of data sources to provide a rich and insightful picture of our key inbound source markets. This includes, but is not limited to, data provided by Oxford Economics, the UNWTO, Apex, Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index and from our own surveys and ad-hoc research. The largest share of the data comes from the International Passenger Survey (IPS) by the ONS.
Visit our About the International Passenger Survey page for more information on how the data is collected and analysed.
