4 Winter Sports Regions In Austria Make It Into Forbes 10 Most Desirable Winter Sports Destinations

The Forbes Advisor 2022 ranking chose the 50 best of 6,000 ski areas worldwide - more than a quarter of them are in Austria alone. As the best local ski area, Ski Arlberg made it to 4th place in the quality ranking. Silvretta Arena Samnaun/Ischgl, Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang Fieberbrunn and the SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser-Brixental also made it into the top 10.

"After we lost many winter guests to neighboring countries such as Switzerland during the pandemic, the start of the current winter tourism season was almost able to match the high level of 2019. This is strong proof of the high quality and popularity of our tourist winter holiday offer,” says Secretary of State for Tourism Susanne Kraus-Winkler.

However, Kraus-Winkler considers it regrettable that winter sports, and especially skiing, are often wrongly viewed critically in the media in Austria due to their supposedly poor climate balance. In this way, the cable car industry has promoted sustainable developments in winter destinations in recent years. According to the WKO trade association, the cable car industry has been able to reduce its energy consumption by around 20 percent over the past ten years, with snow-making systems already using 90 percent renewable energy. Only water and air is used to produce snow, and the water for the storage ponds is mainly taken in the summer when there is a high flow of water, with meltwater from the ski area being fed back here.

“In addition, the tourist destinations of Wagrain-Kleinarl and Zell am See-Kaprun have been awarded a sustainability seal by the UNWTO. On an international level, this proves that local tourism is striving to implement sustainable strategies in a forward-looking manner," says Kraus-Winkler.

A study by the Federal Environment Agency shows that winter tourism accounts for only 0.9 percent of total domestic energy consumption. "Tourism is already playing a pioneering role in many respects: thanks to the many efforts on the part of tourism professionals, the share of renewable energies has risen from 36 percent to 54 percent since 2008," says Kraus-Winkler.

For the reputation and image of the Austrian winter location, the Secretary of State for Tourism would like the facts to be seen: "Tourism is characterized by low energy consumption and efficient value creation. Many voluntary measures show that we are on the right track. A good example, also in the area of ​​mobility, is the sustainability initiative Snow Space in Salzburg, which supports ski and winter guests with 100 percent green electricity on environmentally friendly ski holidays and wants to become climate-neutral in the next five years Kraus-Winkler remembers that sustainability is the basic principle of the federal tourism strategy (Plan T) and will remain the main focus in the future.