UN Tourism and Austria have discussed opportunities for further collaboration and for strengthening partnerships in the areas of sustainability, statistics, and development.
In Vienna, UN Tourism Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili held high-level meetings, reaffirming Austria’s important role in advancing sustainable tourism, including through six of its villages being members of UN Tourism’s Best Tourism Village Programme and the region of Tyrol becoming a member of the International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (INSTO).
During a meeting with Susanne Kraus-Winkler, State Secretary for Tourism (Federal Ministry of Labour and Economy), discussions highlighted Austria’s critical leadership as Co-Chair of the Committee on Statistics. The focus was on implementing the Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism (MST), recently endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission. Austria has played a key role in developing this internationally agreed framework, designed to measure tourism’s economic, social, and environmental impacts.
Pololikashvili stated: “A leading tourism destination like Austria can greatly influence global tourism issues, such as the SF-MST, while ensuring that through these measurement tools, tourism remains a vital driver of sustainable and inclusive development. UN Tourism commends Austria’s clear commitment to shaping a sustainable and resilient tourism future, further emphasized by a considerable number of Best Tourism Villages and its involvement in the INSTO Network.”
During talks with Ambassador Harald Stranzl, discussions centered on leveraging Austrian expertise to enhance development cooperation in tourism. Both parties agreed on Austria’s potential to share its wealth of knowledge and technical resources to push sustainable tourism initiatives globally.
According to UN Tourism’s latest data, Austria ranks 10th globally in international tourist arrivals with 30.9 million visitors in 2023 and 19th in tourism receipts, generating 22.8 billion EUR last year, a figure approximately 11% higher than in 2019.
