Visa easing boosts tourism numbers

Salzburg notched up a record number of visitors from Taiwan last year after visa requirements were simplified.

Salzburg tourism boss Bert Brugger said: "Anything that eases the ability to visit Austria is going to show up straight away on the tourist numbers but in this case it really was significant."Ever since it was no longer necessary for visitors from Taiwan to get a visa we have now been getting more Taiwanese visitors than ever before.

"Last Year around 20,000 Taiwanese visited the city which is more than double what we had the year before. The dropping of the visa requirement has been like pressing the turbo button on tourism traffic from Taiwan."

He said that the number of Chinese visitors as confirmed by the Austrian Times in an interview with the Chinese ambassador at the end of last year had also increased significantly. We are hoping that these markets are going to bring us another 20,000 to 50,000 visitors."Also on the increase were the number of visitors from Russia which rose by 28 percent last year. That was also in part due to the easing of tourism visas according to Brugger.

He said: "Visas to Austria from Russia can now be obtained from special service places across Russia and is not necessarily more to fly to Moscow to sorted out – which has really boosted the attractiveness of a trip to the region."

He said that market research showed that in the Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Vietnam it was a real boost to improving tourist traffic when these restrictions were easier. He said certain countries such as France and Italy and the Netherlands had much more generous tourism visa office but that Austria being in Schengen also benefited from the fact that terrorists could start of the trip in Italy or one of the other countries and then head across the borderless Europe to Austria.

But he added: "We do benefit when other countries ease their visa requirements but obviously the country that gets the tourists at the arrival point benefits the most."

Source - salzburgtimes.at