Austrian Tourist Office
| Österreichisches Verkehrsbüro Aktiengesellschaft
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1917 |
| Seat | Vienna , Austria |
| management | Martin Winkler |
| Number of employees | 2,910 (2018) |
| sales | EUR 1.02 billion (2018) |
| Branch | Travel company / tourism / hotel industry |
| Website | verkehrsbuero.com |
The Österreichisches Verkehrsbüro Aktiengesellschaft is the largest and oldest Austrian tourism group . The corporate headquarters is located in the second Viennese district Leopoldstadt .
history
The Austrian Transport Office was founded in 1917 as a state organization in Vienna and was initially entrusted with the development of a ticket system for the Austrian State Railways . In 1921, 3.7 million tickets were already billed and the sale of luggage insurance began. Currency exchange, travelers checks and travel literature were also offered. The net profit benefited the Austrian tourism promotion. In 1922, business activities were expanded to include hotel rooms.
The tourist office signed agency agreements with all major European shipping companies and began selling airline tickets. It was the first company to make stopovers in Vienna and to produce an “Austrian travel newspaper”. Together with the Austrian Post, regular bus service was introduced in the Salzkammergut and Gastein Valley , and company trips were organized for the first time. Although 1923 was difficult for the Austrian economy, the tourist office was able to complete its central building opposite the Secession on August 30th. Several hotels and liner shipping on Lake Wolfgang were bought up, and the congress business, special trips with chartered vehicles and special arrangements were added to the range.
When the world economic crisis in 1930 also had ever greater effects in Austria, the successful years of the tourist office ended for the time being. The German Reich imposed the " thousand mark ban " to significantly weaken the Austrian economy, which was already heavily dependent on tourism at that time. When Austria was annexed to the German Reich in 1938, the tourist office was liquidated and incorporated into the " Central European Travel Agency ".
A few months after the fighting of the Second World War ended , the tourist office was re-established. It played a major role in the establishment of the " Österreichische Luftverkehrs-AG ", which was the first domestic scheduled airline. Group trips to China, India and Japan have now also been offered.
In 1955 the BIB programs (“Cheap, Ideal, Convenient”) were started, in the same year 70 percent of the turnover was made with the sale of train tickets.
In the early 1980s, in the wake of an economic crisis that brought high losses to light, following a tightly implemented restructuring plan, the company was privatized, which made it possible to secure the continued existence of the tourist office. All matters of public law (in particular the management of the protected brand "Austria") were finally in the already 1954 as Austrian Tourist Advertising Founded Advertising Austria rearranged.
The company operated an expansive and innovative corporate policy and thus brought it to its current position as the market leader in Austria and an internationally operating tourism company.
At the end of the 1990s, the Verkehrsbüro Group advanced to become a full-service tourist provider, which was achieved through numerous takeovers of various tourism companies (hotels and restaurants, bus companies, campsites, etc.). In 1995, 50% of the DDSG Blue Danube Donau-Personenschifffahrtsgesellschaft was taken over.
In 2005 the travel agency Ruefa Reisen , which has around 400 employees and sales of 182.4 million euros, was taken over throughout Austria . This was founded in 1947 and has been owned by the Bayerische Landesbank since 2000 .
In June 2007 the Novomatic gaming group bought the former traffic office headquarters on Karlsplatz in Vienna . After a renovation, the building was opened as a cultural center in 2009. The headquarters of the traffic office has been in the 2nd district since 2012.
Company data
The Austrian Transport Office is owned by Vienna Insurance Group AG (36.58%), AVZ-Holding drei GmbH (60.98%) and Toth Privatstiftung (2.44%).
The company is divided into the business areas of leisure tourism, business tourism and the hotel industry. The culinary division was sold at the end of 2007.
In the 2018 financial year, the Verkehrsbüro Group posted consolidated sales totaling EUR 1.02 billion and thus a profit of 19 percent compared to the previous year. The group result before taxes amounted to EUR 22.26 million and thus rose by 11.9 percent. The equity ratio was 23.7 percent in 2018.
With an active portfolio of 25 Austria Trend Hotels & Resorts with a capacity of over 9,000 beds, 1 suite in Schönbrunn Palace, as well as 3 campsites and 2 hostels, the Verkehrsbüro Group operates the largest hotel group in Austria. The group is present in Central and Eastern Europe with the Austria Trend Hotel Ljubljana. In the low-budget design hotels segment, the Verkehrsbüro Group is represented in Austria with the Motel One brand in a joint venture with the German Motel One AG. In 2020 the group started its new hotel brand Bassena Hotels.In March 2020 the first hotel under the new brand, the Hotel Bassena Wien Messe Prater, was opened.
In the leisure tourism sector, the group has a branch network of over 100 locations and a market share of more than 24 percent. From 2009, the changeover to a one-brand strategy with a focus on “Ruefa” took place, which was completed in mid-2010. The group also includes Eurotours International, the largest incoming agency in Central Europe, as well as tourism holdings in Austria and Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Hungary.
Business travel is another important part of the group. There are eight locations in Vienna, Linz, Salzburg, Graz, Bregenz and Klagenfurt. The congress management is carried out under the Austropa Interconvention brand.
In 2011, the group took over Palais Event Veranstaltungen GmbH and with it the traditional Café Central as well as some traditional event locations such as the Palais Ferstel , Palais Daun-Kinsky and the Vienna Stock Exchange.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento from February 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Facts & Figures. In: verkehrsbuero.com . June 11, 2019, accessed on November 7, 2019 (PDF; 147 kB).