Austrian Association for Tourism
The Austrian Association for Tourism ( ÖVT for short ) was founded in 1980 as a travel agency association for medium-sized companies in the field of tourism in Austria . The initiator and founding chairman was Joseph Reitinger-Laska. In the meantime he has been excluded from the association by a majority resolution of the general assembly.
In its prime, the ÖVT had almost 400 members, but due to resignations in 2018, it had around 100 full members (plus around 80 ao and around 10 honorary members). In any case, the competition association ÖRV has more members, but in contrast to the ÖVT it mainly represents the interests of large companies in the industry.
At the time, the ÖVT's main area of responsibility was safeguarding the interests of its members in the face of negative developments in the travel agency sector. For example, model lawsuits were conducted against dominant tour operators, airlines and non-branch companies such as supermarket chains. The ÖVT also defends the interests of its members against authorities. With the help of an expert opinion commissioned by the constitutional lawyer Mayer, the authority of the trade supervisory authority in the Ministry of Economic Affairs was forced to deal more conciliatory with the companies.
From 2011, a cooperation with Kuoni Travelpartner GmbH was entered into for the purpose of bundled purchasing from service providers and an overall stronger presence in the industry for the benefit of the members. This ended in 2016. The subsequent, independent bundling of purchasing interests has also been discontinued in the meantime.
Board members for the current period since 2018 are Helmut Hirner, MBA (chairman), Sylvia Marek (deputy & general secretary), Alfred Dunkel (treasurer), Phillies Ramberger (secretary), Heidi Kopenits (deputy secretary).