Austria is not just for beginner skiers, it is good for the intermediate and advanced – that is this year’s message to the public from the Tyrolean Tourist Board.
“Austria’s image in the UK is that you learn in Austria, improve in France and then graduate to the US,” said marketing manager for the UK Christine Edenstrasser, who is based in the region’s capital, Innsbruck.
“The Tyrol has all kinds of slopes. St Anton has good off-piste skiing in the Arlberg mountains and Kitzbuhel has a huge circuit with 60 interconnecting lifts.”
To get the message over to the trade and consumer, the tourist board is setting up an Internet site that will carry in-depth information about resort facilities as well as a live video link showing snow conditions.
From the Web site, Edenstrasser plans to link to sites of the major tour operators, acknowledging their role in the Austrian market.
“Some 80% of all UK visitors come with the big tour operators – Crystal, Thomson, Inghams, Airtours and First Choice. On our site you will find them listed so consumers know who to go to,” she said. The site will open in September, at www.snowtimes.tirol.at
Agents and operators can find out more about what the region has to offer at this year’s Austria Workshop in London in September.
Those unable to attend the September event, will have a second chance to catch up with Tyrol developments at this year’s WTM.
To drum-up consumer demand, the board plans to attend the Daily Mail Ski Show in tandem with the Austrian National Tourist Board, from October 29-November 7.
It is also planning inserts in specialist ski magazines and national newspapers from September onwards.
Edenstrasser is driving through a change in marketing strategy this year. “Over the past 10 years we had 23 markets, now we have reduced it to 10 principal markets,” she said. “Within that, we have singled out two principal markets – the UK and Italy – to focus on over the next three years. We see that we need to devote more time and effort to the British market.”
The Tyrol attracts half of the total number of visitors from the UK to Austria, with 700,000 overnights in the summer and the same number in the winter.