Tourist attractions in Vienna

The tourist attractions of Vienna concentrate in three distinct areas. The largest cluster, centred on Schönbrunn Palace, attracted around five million visitors in 2009, down from six million in 2008. Museums and exhibitions of Hofburg Palace accounted for nearly two million visitors in 2008, with a significant decline in 2009. The third, and the newest, cluster of modern art museums in Museumsquartier attracted less than one million visitors.According to the Vienna Tourist Board, the Schönbrunn cluster includes the Palace itself, Tiergarten Schönbrunn, the Palmenhaus, the Wüstenhaus, the Imperial Coach Collection (Wagenburg), the Maze Gardens (Irrgarten) and the Privy Gardens (KronPrinzgarten). See
Sehenwurdigkeiten 2007 (in German)
' and
Sehenwurdigkeiten 2008 (in German)
' for exact composition of each of three clusters. Nearby duo of Kunsthistorisches and Naturhistorisches museums, located halfway between Museumsquartier and Hofburg, also reported around one million visitors. The Landstraße district, which lies south-east of the old city, is home to art exhibitions at the Belvedere Palace and the KunstHausWien.

Vienna stands out among other European tourist destinations for being a "new old city", a city in transition from an older "picture city" like Florence and Venice to being a global city like Paris and London. For six consecutive years, 2003–2008, tourism industry was on the rise, but in 2009 the global financial crisis caused a sharp decline, especially in long-distance tourism from Asia and North America. The new museums of modern art retained or even increased their attendance, but museums of classical art lost more than a third of their former ticket sales. According to preliminary data for the first half of 2010, Vienna is already past the bottom of the crisis and visitor numbers are rising again. In 2013, Vienna was ranked the world’s most livable city for the fifth consecutive year, playing host to 5.8 million tourists, a growth of over four percent as compared to 2012.

Effects of the global crisis

In 2003–2008 the Austrian tourism industry enjoyed a six-year streak of growth, with each year beating the previous record by an average 2.1%.
Umsatzeinbrüche im Tourismus (in German)
'. Die Presse, January 22 (Web edition: January 21), 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-22. Tourism generated 8.4% of Austrian gross domestic product (23.6 billion Euros) and provided 181 thousand jobs.OECD 2010, p. 119. The "top ten" of Vienna's tourist attractions in this period included the Schönbrunn Palace, Tiergarten Schönbrunn, the Albertina, the Wiener Riesenrad, the Hofburg Palace museums, the Belvedere, the Kunsthistorisches and Naturhistorisches museums, the KunstHausWien and the Donauturm observation deck.

In 2008, the effects of the unfolding global financial crisis on the economy were more than offset by a boost from the UEFA Euro 2008. The number of tourists reached an all-time high, although during the tournament itself museum attendance dropped by 60%, and theatres cancelled their shows altogether.Kimmelman, Michael (2008).
In Battle for Vienna: Soccer 1, Culture 0
'. ''The New York Times'', June 26, 2008. Retrieved 2010-08-25. The crisis hit the Austrian tourist industry in the first quarter of 2009, when international tourist arrivals dropped by 8.6%. Museum attendance suffered disproportionately higher losses. Ticket sales at Hofburg palace exhibitions dropped by 20%. Tickets sales at the Albertina, the most visited art collection in Vienna, dropped by more than a third, from 997 thousand in 2008 to 630 thousand in 2009. Its former third place in the list of Viennese attractions was taken over by the Wiener Riesenrad. The Schönbrunn Palace also recorded a drop in visitors, but its profits actually ''increased'' by a third.
Schönbrunn ist Wiens beliebteste Sehenswürdigkeit (in German)
'. Die Presse. August 9 (Web edition: August 8), 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-22. Tiergarten Schönbrunn reported a "record drop" of 70% in February 2009Compared to February 2008, which was an all-time high record month. In February 2008, the Tiergarten began displaying the giant panda and polar bear cubs, which attracted unusually high numbers of local visitors. -
Eintrittspreise: Was alles teurer wird (in German)
'. Die Presse. April 6, 2009 (printed edition: April 7). Retrieved 2010-08-28. (50% for the first quarter of 2009). Practically all museums and zoos increased ticket prices, by an average of 16.7%, the first price hike since the introduction of the Euro in 2002.

According to the Vienna Tourist Board, in 2009 the city's hotels recorded 4.385 million visitors (2008: 4.593 million). 20% of the visitors were Austrians, 24% were Germans, 5% Italians and 5% Americans. The worst losses were recorded among tourists from Asia, North America and Eastern Europe. The state responded with promoting Austria in the neighbouring countries to compensate the losses in long-distance international tourism.OECD 2010, p. 123. In the end of 2009, the trend reversed with an increase in tourists from Japan, Italy, Spain, Greece and Russia. Recovery continued in the first half of 2010. Schönbrunn Palace recorded a 5% increase in ticket sales compared to the first half of 2009, Hofburg had a twelve per cent increase.
Tourismus: Schönbrunn trotzt Krise (in German)
'. Die Presse, July 10 (Web edition: July 9), 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-22.

Ranking of tourist attractions

Annual rankings of tourist attractions are compiled and published by the Vienna Tourist Board (German: Wiener Tourismusverband). The underlying tickets sales statistics counts all visitors, tourists and Viennese natives, together. Freely accessible landmarks are omitted from the statistics altogether. The symbol of Vienna, St. Stephen's Cathedral, ranks only seventeenth: the number (218,000 visitors in 2009) represents sales of tickets to its underground crypts, but access to the cathedral itself is free.

The Schönbrunn Palace counts each entry by a holder of a multi-entry ticket as a separate visit. Thus, for example, in 2008 it sold 1.98 million tickets, but reported 2.581 million ''entries''.
Schloss Schönbrunn: Rekordumsatz trotz Fußball-EM (in German)
'. Die Presse. July 13, 2009. Retrieved 2010-08-22. The Palmenhaus and the Wüstenhaus, tropical landscape exhibits in the historic greenhouses of Tiergarten Schönbrunn, are counted as separate tourist attractions. The three Hofburg exhibitions (the Imperial Apartments, Sisi Museum and the Imperial Silver collection) are usually visited as a package, and each combo ticket is counted as one visit.
Schloss Schönbrunn Top-Sehenswürdigkeit Wiens (in German)
'. Die Presse. July 18, 2007. Retrieved 2010-08-22.

See also

Museums in Vienna not included in the 2009 top thirty ranking:

* Architekturzentrum Wien
* Museum of Art Fakes
* Austrian Theatre MuseumPartnered with the State Opera Museum, which is included in the ranking, through a joint ticketing program.
* Ephesos Museum in Hofburg
* Museum of Ethnology in Hofburg

* Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial
* Kunsthalle Wien
* Bestattungsmuseum Wien
* Vienna Künstlerhaus
* Liechtenstein Museum

* Jewish Museum Vienna
* Museum of the Vienna Secession
* Sigmund Freud Museum
* Vienna Museum (group)

Notes

References

Sources

* Mazanec, Josef; Wober, Karl (2009).
Analysing International City Tourism
'. Springer. .
* OECD (2010).
OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2010
'. OECD Publishing. .

External links

* {{Wikivoyage-inline, Vienna

Vienna Online
City of Vienna's Official Online Travel Guide in English

Vienna Tourist Board: Statistics


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