| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 17/04/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 39 |
| Copyright: Other |
Tourist office campaign pushes soft adventure
Report by MOEKAFER
The Austrian National Tourist Office has launched two brochures promoting the country as a soft-adventure destination.‘Austria, Made For Walking’ contains comprehensive information on everything from easy day walks, to multi-day routes. ‘Where Biking’s More Exciting’ features easy to extreme-biking routes.
On top of distributing the brochures to agents, ANTO is spending £100,000 on advertising in Sunday magazines and walking titles – up from £70,000 last year – and will continue with various familiarisation trips that focus on outdoor activities.
ANTO director UK and Ireland Oskar Hinteregger said that until now, the office hasn’t promoted the wealth of adventure products on offer. “We want to offer Austria as an alternative to any beach holiday,” he added.
Select operators such as Inghams and Anglo-Dutch Sport feature this type of product but only a few of the 140 operators that feature Austria during the summer promote both adventure and lakes and mountains holidays.
But Hinteregger said it will take some time to re-educate agents on the amount of activities available.
For example, of 140 agents surveyed recently, 90% didn’t think people could swim in Austrian lakes.
Last year, 40% of the 600,000 UKvisitors to Austria went in the summer but Hinteregger predicted overall numbers would rise by 10% this year with increased advertising.