"Krone" commentary

Skiing at last! Or further away after all?

Andrea Thomas reports on vacation and travel for the Kronen Zeitung.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/emperorcosar - stock.adobe.com)

This Sunday is October 13 - just two weeks to go until winter officially kicks off on October 26 and 27, 2024 with the World Cup opener in Sölden. We are located in the longest Tyrolean side valley, which advertises "an attractive offer all year round in at least one place in Ötztal". In winter, it is clearly the skiing and snow expertise that is on offer here. Both sporty and leisure skiers will find everything they need; the generous ski area is particularly worth mentioning: around 400 m2 per skier.

The infrastructure is just right, sustainability has become the big issue of our time, and this is taken into account with two full-time jobs. So-called habitat managers take care of everything to do with this, such as regionality. There are buses in the valley that run every half hour - I would like to see that for our village near Vienna; however, there is no tourism association that could support this service. Skis are rented anyway.

If there's one thing in Austria where we have world-class expertise, it's skiing - and the new REISEZEIT winter magazine "Salzburger Land" is dedicated to this.

While some people are looking forward to winter and skiing, others are thinking about beautiful destinations further afield. This is what Phillies Ramberger specializes in. She is President of the Austrian Association of Travel Agencies (ÖVT) and founded PUR Touristik 20 years ago, a provider of tailor-made luxury travel, especially to the Emirates, the Indian Ocean or Southeast Asia, to name just a few examples. It uses its long experience in the tourism industry to provide its customers with unforgettable travel experiences. The European luxury travel market is showing impressive, even astonishing growth - in Austria, the volume is estimated at around 900 million to 1.1 billion euros. This confirms, on the one hand, that vacations are important to us Austrians in every segment and, on the other hand, that it makes sense to save up for a vacation in order to actually experience "once in a lifetime" trips!