At the Heart of Vienna : Culture & Coffee
By Tom Bross
This diverse, ever-appealing capital city is on a roll. A renowned tourism and
business-travel hub at Europe’s eastern-western juncture, Vienna tallied record-breaking visitor numbers for the fifth consecutive year in 2007.
Overnight stays totaled 9,675,208—including 656,000 American overnights. Those figures surpassed (by 3.4%) incoming volume generated by 2006’s internationally promoted Mozart anniversary.
The Culture of Coffee
Consider Vienna’s cosmopolitan abundance: three opera houses, five concert halls, two major symphony orchestras, 26 museums (11 in the fine-arts category), five prominent theaters, eight bona-fide palaces. Size should also be on your clients’ minds: 23 districts spread over 160 square miles; population totaling 1.8 million within city limits, with more parks than any other European capital.
Any roundup wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the city’s traditional coffee houses—113 by the latest official count. Two dozen qualify as concert-cafés, where patrons can sip coffee while listening to piano music or waltz medleys. Among the most venerable spots are Landtmann, Café Central, Imperial, Prückel, Sperl, Schmidt Hansl, Diglas and Frauenhuber (Ludwig van Beethoven’s favorite hangout many years ago). Visit www.wiener-kaffeehaus.at.
Among major symphonic events typifying civic prestige, audiences will enjoy free admittance to the fifth annual Concert for Europe (June 3), when the Vienna Philharmonic performs beneath the stars, in front of the floodlit Neptune Fountain at Schönbrunn Palace. We all know about the Staatsoper (State Opera House), consistently ranked among the best-known local landmarks since its debut in 1869.
Operettas and Operas
But another such venue—Theater an der Wien—has its own roster of notable world premieres. Beethoven’s Fidelio, for instance, plus Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow and the comparably popular Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss. Coming there in summertime: an operatic double-header, beginning with Federico Moreno Torroba’s Luisa Fernanda from 1932, starring tenor Plácido Domingo (July 7-18), followed by Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Aug. 10-19). Elsewhere in town, the 17th-century Schönbrunn Palace Theater presents a new Die Fledermaus production (July 11-Aug. 24).
For specially scheduled entertainment offerings, turn your attention to Vienna Operetta Summer performances, in the Wieden district’s Theresianum Schlosspark (July 2-Aug. 9), and—in the Konzerthaus and other citywide venues—Wien Modern, a festival of contemporary music (Oct. 26-Nov. 30). At twilight time on the Ringstrasse’s Rathausplatz, movie viewers gather for free Music Film Festival evenings, featuring cinema adaptations of opera, ballet, concerts and jazz projected on an outdoor screen (July 12-Aug. 31).
Organized in 1498 and world-renowned ever since, the Vienna Boys’ Choir appears on featured Sundays in the Hofburg Palace’s Royal Chapel. Accompanying a full symphonic orchestra, the youngsters will add their voices to Mozart’s Missa Solemnis (June 22). For much lighter stuff, the The Merry Widow highlights the Volksoper’s schedule (June 25), then the recently reopened Ronacher Theater stages a transatlanic transplant: Mel Brooks’ rollicking musical comedy, The Producers, in a German-language rendition (June 30, July 2-8).
Alongside the Burgarten (locale of a much-photographed Mozart statue) and merely four short inner-city blocks from steeple-topped St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the Albertina (www.albertina.at) contains a world-class collection of more than 60,000 drawings and 1,500,000 prints by graphics-arts masters ranging from da Vinci, Rubens and Dürer to Cèzanne, Matisse and Picasso. But periodic exhibitions make the splashiest news. Two standouts highlight 2008’s schedule. Austria’s biggest-ever showing of Swiss-born Paul Klee’s expressionist paintings—65 overall—will attract museumgoers (May 9-Aug. 10). It’s Vincent van Gogh’s turn later this year, when 50 of his paintings along with rare drawings will be displayed (Sept. 5-Dec. 7). For a rest-their-feet break, your clients can linger at the on-site DO&CO Café, where luncheons and refreshments enliven a terrace overlooking Albertinaplatz.
Klimt at the Belvedere, Fun Fest on the Danube
Historical tidbit: Gustav Klimt completed The Kiss (above)—his famously sexy, gilded-layered masterpiece—in 1908. So there you have an excellent 100th-anniversary reason to see it “in person,” along with other gorgeous Klimts, plus prominent works by French Impressionists and Viennese Biedermeier-period painters. They adorn the Upper Belvedere’s Austrian Gallery inside Prince Eugene of Savoy’s summer palace.
Travelers arriving in midyear might hear a barrage of sound coming from the Danube, where a skinny island developed as a flood barrier extends 13 miles—unobstructed parkland favored by bikers-hikers-rollerbladers-joggers and beach-blanket sunbathers. It becomes a stomping ground during the annual three-day Danube Island Festival (June 13-15), a thumpin’, jumpin’ party amounting to 500 hours of hip-hop, jazz, rock, pop, country, blues, cabaret acts and Wienerlied song sessions. Upwards of 3,000,000 revelers join in. Then, for utter contrast and a June 16th open-air grand finale: classical music-making by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
Keeping the month buzzing, competing international teams bring UEFA EURO football (a.k.a. soccer) action to Vienna, where seven deciding games of the Swiss and Austrian-hosted series will be played in the Prater recreation park’s 53,000-seat Ernst Happel Stadium. They begin June 8th—culminating in the final championship matchup on the 29th. Expect the stadium to be jam-packed. Same for a free-admittance Central Fan Zone, extending 1.2 kilometers from the Rathausplatz, through Volksgarten public greenery and southward onto the imperial Hofburg’s Heldenplatz. Ten giant screens along the route will treat onlookers to live telecasts of each match.
For Luxury-Minded Clientele
Clients with five-star taste (and pocketbooks to match) should know about three new deluxe properties, all centrally located. Occupying a redeveloped neoclassical building dating from 1913, the 186-room Steigenberger Herrenhof will open in October on Herrengasse, therefore near the Hofburg palace complex (www.steigenberger.com). Amenities include a spa and 10 seminar rooms.
Another five-star beauty, in a 19th-century Wilhelminian edifice, the 68-room Ring Hotel overlooks the store-lined Kärntner Ring in the Staatsoper’s immediate vicinity (www.theringhotel.com). Then, early next year, comes the Hotel im Palais Schwarzenberg, with 44 guest rooms fitted into the right wing of this 18th-century Baroque landmark on an 18-acre setting, walkable to Karlsplatz as well as Stadtpark greenery, (www.palais.schwarzenberg.com).
Mid-city, Mid-priced
During recent Viennese visits, JAX FAX stayed in a pair of mid-city “recommendables.” On the Schotten Ring, five-star, 194-room Hotel de France began existence in 1872. For a decade following 1945’s end of World War II, it functioned as French military-occupation headquarters. Now refined comfort touches are evident, with Restaurant Bel Etage acclaimed for culinary excellence. High-season rack rates for doubles range 245-290 euros or from about $390 to $460 (www.austria-hotels.at).
As of this month, attendees doing business in the city’s trade-fair halls can book accommodations at a four-star newcomer on adjacent Trabrennstasse: 251-room Courtyard by Marriott (www.courtyard-wien-messe.at).
Opened last August on the Rennweg side of Belvedere’s vast palatial and botanical-garden acreage, aptly named, four-star Lindner Hotel am Belvedere is sleekly modernistic and artsy, comprising 219 bedrooms, plus restaurant servings in a skylit conservatory, meeting facilities for up to 150 attendees, woodsy Heuriger wine tavern and seventh-floor fitness center-with-a-view (www.lindnerhotels.at).
Bikes, Metro and City Cards
As in several other European capitals (Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Helsinki), Citybike Vienna gives visitors pedal-pushing opportunities to do some up-close sightseeing via more than 1,000 kilometers of signposted pathways. Stocked with brightly colored two-wheelers, 54 rental stations are conveniently located alongside U-Bahn subway stations and charges are reasonable (1 euro for two hours, 4 euros for a morning or afternoon jaunt). The www.citybikewien.at website provides details.
Tell your cost-conscious FIT clients about the 72-hour Wien-Karte, still a bargain at 18.50 euros (about $27)—valid for substantial price reductions at more than 36 museums, plus theaters, concert halls, shops and restaurants, even wine bars. Card holder also save money on guided tours and bicycle rentals, and they ride free on Viennese buses, streetcars and U-Bahn subway lines. Cards available at the Tourist Information Office on Albertinaplatz (alongside the opera house) and at most hotels.
Austrian Airlines (celebrating its 50th anniversary as of March ’08) flies daily nonstops between New York JFK and Vienna VIE, also daily from/to Washington Dulles IAD and six times weekly between Chicago ORD and the Schwechat Airport gateway southeast of the city center. In addition, Delta Air Lines operates five-times-weekly nonstop service between Atlanta ATL and Schwechat.
FIT travelers like the time-saving advantages of riding aboard the green double-decker City Airport Train (CAT) from and to Vienna’s international airport. The 11-mile commute takes only 16 minutes for nine euros (about $13); in-town arrival at the Wien-Mitte rail station near the north side of the Stadtpark. CAT CAB, a supplemental service introduced last January, provides swift station-to-hotel transport for 24 euros (about $35). Full details (and online ticketing) at: www.cityairtransportation.com.
More specifically, the Vienna Tourist Board (www.b2b.vienna.info) keeps agents “in the know” about entertainment, exhibitions and special-events and is a handy search engine for hotel bookings at 350 properties.
On b2b.wien.info, agents will find specific information and services for tour operators and travel agents including downloads of the Event Manual, which previews the top events taking place in Vienna, and the Destination Guide, an essential reference for tour operators and counter staff.
Furthermore, agents can join the interactive online destinations course provided by the Austrian National Tourist Office in the U.S. and become an Austria Expert. Those who graduate from this course can continue their education by participating in one of the study trips to Austria and after a testing may earn the title A.C.T.S. (Austria Certified Travel Specialist). The Vienna Tourist Board has been a partner in this training program for more than 10 years.
For further information, contact Marsa Kindl at the Austrian Tourist Office in New York, E-mail marsa.kindl-omuse@austria.info or call 212-575 7723-13.
For general information, contact the Austrian Tourist Office in New York City, 212-944-6880; E-mail: travel@austria.info; Vienna Boasts High Repeat Business
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Vienna Boasts High Repeat Business
By Maria Lisella
Norbert Kettner was named Managing Director of the Vienna Tourist Board last September (see JF, Dec. 2007 issue). Kettner’s intentions are to build on Vienna’s powerful image as a “beautiful city with a great history” by harnessing its qualities as a “creative city” and “powerhouse of innovation.”
JF: Mr. Kettner, your CV indicates that you have been innovative in transforming arts and crafts into viable businesses. Do you see yourself as transferring what you learned in that realm to developing sustainable tourism in Vienna?
Kettner: I do indeed, because Vienna's vast creative potential has not yet been used to the full in tourism. There are still too many people, who associate our city only with its historic splendor without seeing its attractive modern facets.
JF: How is Vienna preparing for its role as Europe's capital of soccer for UEFA EURO 2008?
Kettner: The central fan zone will be right in the middle of the city: 1.2 kilometers of our famous Ring boulevard will be transformed for this purpose and provide room for 70,000 people. Nine giant screens will transmit the matches, efficient gastronomy will be provided as well as manifold entertainment from 9 a.m. to midnight. Entry will be free. Actually, the whole city will celebrate a big multinational party, not just for soccer fans, but also for those, who just want to enjoy the special atmosphere and excitement this event brings to "off side soccer" Vienna.
JF: Why should travel agents send their clients to your destination?
Kettner: Vienna is a must for everyone who claims to be well-traveled. Because it offers Europe at its best: Stunning historic treasures alongside with contemporary arts, design and lifestyle and an easy-going way of life. Because it is the world capital of music offering numerous concerts and music festivals throughout the year as well as 300 performances at the Vienna State Opera, Theater an der Wien and the Volksoper.
JF: Are there new attractions for travel agents to pitch to clients?
Kettner: Lovers of classical music can look forward to 2009 when we shall celebrate the musical genius Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809). Lots of star-studded concerts and a major exhibition will be staged, additionally in Vienna there are many places to visit and walk in the master's footsteps.
JF: Is there any new air service to report on?
Kettner: Air service is basically unchanged: Austrian Airlines operates non-stop flights between Vienna and New York (JFK), Washington DC. and Chicago. As the national carrier, it maintains a broad network of inter-European flights. Delta Airlines operates non-stop service between Atlanta and Vienna.
JF: What do you consider Vienna’s best selling point?
Kettner: Vienna's ability to blend old with the most contemporary ideas, thus creating relevant events that cannot be experienced anywhere else. For example, the Life Ball, Europe's largest AIDS charity event that takes place on May 17, could not have been invented elsewhere, because it took the Viennese ball tradition as a starting point. Or the Magic of Advent is a direct "off-spring" from our traditional Christmas markets.
JF: Can you give us a description of clients that visit your country?
Kettner: According to visitor surveys, the average visitor to Vienna is 40 years old, very well-educated and culture-minded. He or she travels with a partner, and generally without children. Only half of the city's guests are first-time visitors while more than 30% of them have already visited more than twice.
JF: How many Americans visited in 2007? How does this compare to 2006 and what are your goals for the future?
Kettner: Last year our number of U.S. visitors dropped by 1.7 % to 262,000 and their 656,000 overnight-stays represent the same decline. Our goal is of course to increase figures, although the strong EURO is not very helpful at the moment. Nevertheless, in January and February we had an increase of U.S. visitors by 7 %, so we hope this will establish a trend for this year.
JF: Any trends to be on the look out for?
Kettner: In tourism I see a trend I should like to call the dissolving of target groups. In the past you could largely go by nations, age groups, special interest groups, etc.
These days individuality rules with every person being a target group in itself. Someone aged 50 might go in for baroque paintings and avant-garde architecture, music by Mozart and the Rolling Stones, haute couture and shabby chic, rustic food and luxury dining - all that and switching between poles every minute. This is a challenge for destinations, let alone destination marketing.
JF: What is the impression you would like visitors to take home after they visit?
Kettner: That one visit is not enough and that they will recommend Vienna highly to all their friends.
April 2008
Breaking Barriers Along the Danube
By Tom Bross
A big splash of news came out of east-side Europe last December. The region’s border-free zone (designated the Schengen Area) was expanded and now involves 24 countries. Nine newcomers include Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. So no more frontier barriers, no more snoopy checkpoints at road and rail crossings—indicating enhanced freedom and social-economic integration. Plus: increased potential for tour operators specializing in continental itineraries.
Those developments coincide with each year’s travel-trade show in Vienna (Jan. 27-29, 2008). The industry get-together was previously known as austrian travel business or atb. Since 2007 the geographic scope has broadened, hence 2007’s debut of the austrian and central european travel business (actb) Convention and Exposition, with Vienna continuing as host and hub city. The ongoing partnership with the Danube Tourist Commission has enhanced what was once an exclusively Austrian showplace. Visit www.danubesalesmanual.com
The river, flowing downstream-eastward toward Romania’s Black Sea Delta—a nature preserve declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991 and Europe’s Landscape of the Year for 2007-08—runs 1,767 miles through a mix of rural scenery, gorges, vineyard slopes and urban topography. “Must-see” cities are on the waterway’s cruising route: Certainly Vienna, but also Budapest, Bratislava, Linz, Passau, Regensburg and Ulm. Travelers following the river’s course on land or aboard excursion vessels soon learn about the Danube’s international name changes. For instance: Donau (Austria and Germany), Duna (Hungary).
Petra Stolba, CEO of the Austrian National Tourist Office, refers to actb as “the primary meeting place and networking opportunity for everyone interested in selling travel to Austria and central Europe.” This year’s edition gathered 605 exhibitors and 852 international buyers, including a U.S. contingent of 58 agents, group organizers and incentive planners. Stolba introduced ANTO’s new promotion campaign, with an “It’s Got to be Austria” theme.
Austrian & Swiss Soccer Matches
Considering spectator numbers and vast broadcast coverage, UEFA Euro football (soccer!) action tops this year’s special-events schedule. Matchups (June 7-29) involve four Austrian cities (Salzburg, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Vienna) and four in Switzerland (Bern, Basel, Zürich, Geneva), with the championship finals played in Vienna’s Ernst-Heppel Stadium. Tourism officials expect an increase of one million overnight stays in Austrian locales (visit www.uefa.com).
Next year, attention shifts to a famous classical musician and a lively riverfront city. Joseph Haydn spent 30 years as conductor of Prince Esterházy’s court orchestra in southerly Burgenland. The prolific composer died in 1809, so 200th-anniversary commemoratives—including gala performances of his operas and oratorios—will attract audiences to various Austrian venues. Esterházy Palace in provincial-capital Eisenstadt is an impressively venerable setting for indoor-outdoor International Haydn Festival concerts (Sept. 10-27).
Linz, sharing honors with Vilnius in Lithuania, has been designated 2009’s European Capital of Culture (www.linz09.at). Thirty diverse, purposely conceived programs and activities highlight the year’s events calendar in Austria’s third-biggest city (after Vienna and Graz), home town of delectable Linzertorte. September’s Klangwolken (Clouds of Sound) ranks as the city’s “signature extravaganza,” drawing huge crowds to Danube riverbanks for bursting fireworks synchronized with booming orchestral music. Cutting-edge culture-year exhibitions are planned for inner-city Linz’s Lentos Modern Art Museum and the futuristic, interactive Ars Electronica Center. Audiences anticipate Brucknerfest music-making in the world-class Brucknerhaus concert hall (Sept. 14-Oct. 8), followed by a Vienna Philharmonic guest appearance (Oct. 26).
Austrian Airlines flies daily nonstops Vienna VIE from/to New York JFK, Chicago ORD and Washington Dulles IAD. The carrier’s Star Alliance affiliation gives your clients a wide choice of North American airports for transatlantic departures and returns. Delta Air Lines operates five weekly nonstops between Atlanta ATL and Austria’s capital city. Flughafen Schwechat, the country’s international gateway, is southeast of midcity Vienna.
Excursions in Slovenia
JAX FAX joined a two-day post-convention tour to this proudly independent little nation. Adria Airways flights between Vienna and Ljubljana take merely 50 minutes. Among the standout attractions in Slovenia are: the capital-city of Ljubljana, crisscrossed by seven bridges, energized by 60,000 university students. Rows of Baroque and Art Nouveau buildings wrap around a promontory topped by medieval castle ramparts.
Its Adriatic seacoast towns feature historic marketplaces and trendy resort hotels. Piran, Portorož, Koper and Izola are perched on the craggy Istrian peninsula shared with Croatia. Super-scenic Lake Bled and its tourism-friendly shoreline town lined with restaurants and a walkway that circles the lake. Mountain ranges form a dramatic backdrop for the clifftop castle, also a 17th-century church on a mid-lake island. Immense Postojna Cave, Europe’s most extensive, UNESCO World Heritage Site, 20-km. network of passages, galleries and chambers.
For the 2008 manual to Slovenia, E-mail: info@slovenia.info
For information on Austria, contact the Austrian National Tourist Office in New York City at 212-944-6880; e-mail travel@austria.info; www.austria-tourism.biz
September 2007 Feature
Vienna’s Notably New Properties
by Tom Bross
This has been a boom year for hotel openings in Vienna, and such developments are timely in light of incoming visitors’ numbers. Look at the stats: 9,356,044 overnight stays recorded in 2006, including a hefty 667,850 U.S. bookings (10.6% more than ’05). So now your clients have more-than-ever choices among four-star properties in various parts of the Austrian capital.
For example, the slick, high-tech, 282-room Arcotel Kaiserwasser, opened in July, stands amidst Donaupark’s UNO-City skyscrapers on Vienna’s northern outskirts, with the bonus of easy access to Danube Island’s recreational fields and waterside pathways. In a different northerly direction and comparably appealing for hiking, biking and other outdoor activities, Hotel Kahlenberg, a low-rise 20-room Austria Trend property, features a scenically hilly location in the midst of the 19th district’s sprawling Wienerwald (Vienna Woods).
In town, guests check into a neoclassical 19th-century building that’s now the 310-room Hotel Savoy (another Austria Trend newcomer), right alongside art-filled Belvedere Palace and the Botanical Gardens. The Budget Design Hotel’s funky, mid-size roomz Vienna attracts (mostly) young travelers to its public spaces and 152 rooms in the 11th district’s southeastern Simmering area. Among other four-star accommodations opened this year are Lindner Hotel am Belvedere, Novotel Wien City and—next to the Westbahnhof rail station—a 141-room Fleming’s property complete with a brasserie and wine bar.
Five-Star Newcomers Augment the Hotel Scene
The five-star niche hasn’t been neglected in this upsurge of recent developments. The definitely deluxe, 45-room DO&CO Hotel (www.doco.com) opened last year on upper floors of 1990’s radically curvaceous, postmodern Haas-Haus. Its heart-of-Vienna location overlooking Stephansplatz gives guests terrific views of St. Stephen’s cathedral from the big-windowed restaurant and top-level terrace. Same high-level price category—and another ambitious rehab of a landmark edifice—pertains to the 74-room, cutting-edge-contemporary Levante Parliament (www.thelevante.com) near Vienna’s Rathaus and leafy Volksgarten. The rich layout blends nicely into a Bauhaus landmark from 1908.
On target to open next October in an ornate, tastefully renovated “Ringstrasse palace” on the ritzy, store-lined Kärtner Ring, the 68-room Ring Hotel (www.theringhotel.com) is another example of a small-size luxury property with extra-spacious guest rooms. Coming in 2009, the more sizeable, 207-room Shangri-La Hotel (www.shangri-la.com) will open its doors in what used to be the Erste Bank’s prestigious headquarters, erected in the mid-19th century on Schubertring in the center-of-things across from the Stadtpark. Amenities will include a spa with exotic Chinese/Himalayan healing rituals, indoor swimming pool and a ballroom topped by a glass dome.
Art Explosion
With impressive consistency, important art exhibitions appear on every year’s cultural calendar. Such as the Albertina’s far-ranging Monet to Picasso attention-getter runs Sept. 14-April 6 (www.albertina.at).
Over at the Hofburg’s venerable, absolutely world-class Kunsthistorisches Museum (www.khm.at) alongside Maria-Theresien-Platz, Titian’s Italian Renaissance masterworks is sure to draw enthusiastic viewers, Oct. 18-Jan. 6. For an added dose of international flair, an upcoming show at the Kunstforum (www.kunstforumwien.at) titled Symbolism in Belgium will feature 100 paintings traveling from Brussels’ Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Oct.16- Jan. 6.
FIT travelers planning a capital-city visit lasting more than a day should be advised of the 72-hour Vienna Card that costs about $25 for many discounts. Cards can be purchased at most top-line hotels, also at the main Tourist Information Office on Albertinaplatz.
Getting There
Austrian Airlines flies daily nonstops between New York JFK and Vienna VIE, also daily from/to Washington Dulles IAD and (since June) six times weekly between Chicago ORD and the Schwechat Airport gateway southeast of the city center. Last spring, five-times-weekly Delta Air Lines flights were inaugurated from/to Atlanta ATL.
For further information, contact the Austrian Tourist Office in New York, 212-944-6880; E-mail: travel@austria.info; www.austria-tourism.biz; or, the Vienna Tourist Board (www.vienna.info)
For consolidator airfares and tour packages to Austria see page L7 of the Listings Section