THE medieval city of Graz in Austria has just been designated a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) World Heritage Site and will be European City of Culture in 2003.
Graz Tourist Office sales promotion manager Susanne Hoeller said: “We have one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval city centres and are known as the Tuscany of Austria.
“We are going to produce an information folder in English to highlight the fact and promote tourism to the city.”
She added: “Our primary task is to get people to know there’s much more to Austria than simply Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck. We like to call ourselves the hidden treasure of the South.
“Apart from the city, the surrounding region is excellent wine country, there’s also a thermal spa and the Piber stud farm that breeds the white Lipizzaner horses for Vienna’s famous Spanish Riding School.”
Hoeller is keen to get Graz featured in city-break brochures but currently there are no direct flights from the UK.
“The Graz airport authority is negotiating with charter airlines and we are 60%-70% sure we will get a service up and running by the end of the year,” she added.
“The large operators see Graz as just a side trip from Vienna, so we would prefer to talk to smaller, independent travel agencies and operators sending their clients to see undiscovered Austria,” she said.
Currently visitors have to fly into Vienna and then take a 2hr coach or train transfer to Graz.
To enhance the potential for three-day breaks to the city, the tourist office has put together a range of day trips costing around £15 each, bookable on arrival.
These include the wine-growing region near the town of Deutschlandsberg and the Lipizzaner stud farm at Piber.
The city also hosts several annual festivals including a flower festival – The Magic of Gardens – from mid-April to mid-October, and an also an opera and classical music festival – the Styriarte – which runs for six weeks from late June.
Agents and operators interested in organising packages to Graz can meet the tourist board at the Austrian Workshop on April 11 in London. (see news brief, opposite)