Viennese hotels practically running on empty

Hotels may have reopened in Vienna last week, but as of yet, they're not even coming close to covering costs, to say nothing of making a profit. Just to break even, occupancy has to reach 77 percent, but at the moment hotels in the city are barely at 5 percent.

Until the corona virus crisis, there were more than 67,000 guest beds in Vienna and in 2019, they were used for 17.6 million overnight stays. Of these, 14.5 million were from foreign visitors. Those kind of numbers make it obvious why it's of absolute importance for the country's borders to be opened as soon as possible. It's also why there's so much anticipation of the planned opening of borders with Germany, as it gives hope that the flow of guests could resume by mid-June.

In recent years, March to June have been strong months for business travelers, meaning there's no way to make up for the loss of these bookings in 2020. From September, the second most important segment of business travel could pick up speed again if travel restrictions in Europe and worldwide are relaxed again.