Vienna Media News 12/2020 Vienna Showcase now offering virtual tours of the city’s museums

11.12.2020 - The Vienna Tourist Board is proving that cultural life in the capital is still very much worth a look even in times of travel restrictions with its new live stream series – leaving people hungry for more as soon as it’s possible to visit again.

Virtual tours of the latest highlights of the capital’s art and culture scene are now a reality thanks to Vienna Showcase, a new live stream series launched by the Vienna Tourist Board. The latest edition in the digital series was broadcast live on December 4, 2020 from the Sigmund Freud Museum, in front of an international audience of journalists and travel industry representatives. Vienna Showcase – Sigmund Freud Museum doubled up as the Vienna Tourist Board’s official contribution for Art Basel OVR: Miami Beach, the world’s leading fair for contemporary art, which streamed the event live on its website. Highlights included a tour of the fully refurbished Sigmund Freud Museum (which reopened at Berggasse 19 in summer 2020) led by director Monika Pessler, followed by a live discussion in the museum library entitled Art, Analysis and Public Health.

The pilot project for Vienna Showcase took place in July 2020 at the Leopold Museum, but was only produced for the Chinese market. The first episode to be broadcast to a global audience was produced at the Beethoven moves exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna (KHM) on October 5, 2020. Around 150 journalists and representatives of the travel industry followed events online from the USA and European markets to India. After KHM director Sabine Haag and the Vienna Tourist Board’s Director of Tourism Norbert Kettner had welcomed the virtual guests, co-curator Jasper Sharp gave a tour of the exhibition that the famous Viennese museum is staging until January 24, 2021 to mark the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth. Another Vienna Showcase episode is scheduled for February 2021 at the Albertina modern, the city’s new contemporary art museum.

After an exclusive preview for the international press and travel industry, each episode is made available to the 20,000-plus members of the Vienna Tourist Board’s Vienna Expert Club International to view on its B2B platform, taking it to media and travel industry multipliers in more than 17 focus markets. With Vienna largely cut off from the majority of its key markets owing to travel restrictions and flight cancellations, the Vienna Tourist Board has shifted the focus of some of its work online. The Vienna Showcase series is just one of numerous marketing activities designed to keep the city at the forefront of people’s minds. “Normally there is a Vienna Tourist Board event of some description every other day somewhere in the world, but at the moment we are also keeping in touch with our customers and partners via live streams,” confirmed Director of Tourism Norbert Kettner. “We are all too aware of the power of images and how important it is to show the world that Vienna still has an active cultural scene even during these very difficult times – and will continue to do so after the pandemic. We will not stop working for Vienna’s visitor economy and will keep at it until it is back at the top of its game again.”