Millions of overnight stays

Salzburg’s tourism sector celebrates record January

Winter in Salzburg is booming.(Bild: Roland Holitzky)

The new year started with a record for Salzburg's tourism industry: in January, more people spent the night in the province than ever before. The rest of the winter season has also been very pleasing so far.

In January 2025, more people spent the night in Salzburg than ever before. With almost four million overnight stays (3,968,276), January 2025 was particularly good for Salzburg's tourism businesses. "This is a top figure and surpasses the previous record in 2020 by around 13,200 overnight stays," emphasizes Christine Nagl from the state statistics department. The provisional district figures for January at a glance:

• Pinzgau: 1,835,275 overnight stays (46.3 percent)
• Pongau: 1,482,256 overnight stays (37.4 percent)
• Lungau: 279,869 overnight stays (7.0 percent)
• City of Salzburg: 184,369 overnight stays (4.6 percent)
• Tennengau: 98,788 overnight stays (2.5 percent)
• Flachgau: 87,719 overnight stays (2.2 percent)

The majority of tourists come from Germany.(Bild: Land Salzburg/Grafik)

However, January was not the only very positive month in terms of overnight stays; there were also 7.3 million overnight stays in the first three months of the winter season, i.e. from November to January. For Deputy Governor Stefan Schnöll, one thing is certain: "The tourism engine in the province is running at full speed. This secures many jobs in the regions. Especially in Pinzgau and Pongau, the varied sports, events and culinary offerings attract guests from all over the world.

Of the approximately 7.34 million overnight stays between November 2024 and January 2025, around 2.95 million were accounted for by tourists from Germany. At 40.2 percent, guests from our neighboring country are the most important group. Around 1.54 million Austrians (21.1 percent) spent their vacations in Salzburg, while around 805,000 came from the Netherlands (eleven percent). The remaining 27.7 percent came from countries including the Czech Republic (around 252,000 overnight stays) and the United Kingdom (around 244,000 overnight stays).