Vienna City Card now bears the Austrian Ecolabel
Following a successful audit by consumer advocacy group VKI, in 2022 Vienna's official visitor card was awarded the Austrian Umweltzeichen ecolabel – an independent environmental and quality seal – for its environmentally friendly mobility offering. With more than 200 discounts, unlimited travel on Vienna's public transportation network (central Zone 100) and an add-on for travel to and from the airport by public transportation also available, the Vienna City Card stands out from its competitors. Visitors to the city can also claim discounts on advance rail tickets for services operated by the Westbahn franchise. For 27 years, the Vienna City Card has been providing sustainable mobility options for visitors to Vienna – and the current award makes it the world's first eco-certified city card. With sales of more than 6.6 million, it is also one of the most successful city cards in Europe. The city's official city card has also been available at more than 50 ÖBB and Westbahn points of sale in Austria and Germany since June 2022 – as well as from the two Tourist Info centers, selected hotels, selected Wiener Linien sales outlets, the online store and in the Vienna Tourist Board’s destination app ivie.
ivie Downloads Up Fourfold
In 2022, the Vienna Tourist Board's city guide app ivie was continuously updated and expanded to include new offers and functions. Launched in 2020, it now includes multimedia profiles of more than 300 locations. The app grew to include 13 unique walks and guides in 2022, highlighting both well-known and hidden corners of the city in line with the changing of the seasons. That year alone, the Vienna Tourist Board added five new walks and guides: the LGBT guide, Ringstrasse audio walk, Prater walk, Christmas Markets guide and an Otto Wagner walk – the latter accompanying users on a tour that culminates at the Otto Wagner Villa in Vienna’s 14th district Penzing. A new personalization feature now lets visitors specify their interests, enabling them to see places that are tailored to their individual preferences, for an even more bespoke Vienna experience. ivie Events, the latest feature, suggests suitable events to visitors and also reveals which of them offer discounts for holders of a Vienna City Card. The fact that these developments resonated well with users is clearly reflected in the figures: the total number of active users jumped by 412% year-on-year to 363,000, while downloads more than quadrupled year on year to over 450,000.
Tourist Info Centers Welcome 216,000 Visitors
The Vienna Tourist Board’s two Tourist Info centers (Albertinaplatz, Vienna International Airport) provided information related to Vienna as a destination to around 216,000 visitors in 2022. In addition, four mobile tourist offices stopped off at various locations in Vienna during the summer season. And the Vienna Tourist Board reached out to around 77,000 visitors by telephone, e-mail, chat or social media in 2022, with the trend towards digital communication likewise increasing each year.
In 2022, the Vienna Tourist Board produced around 70 different forms of advertising material – from city maps to brochures and posters – in eight languages with a total circulation of around three million copies. They were available from accommodation providers throughout the city, and the Vienna Tourist Board’s Tourist Information offices at Albertinaplatz and Vienna International Airport. In addition to Route and Spot, the Vienna Tourist Board’s key publications include the Vienna map, which is Austria's highest-circulation city map with over two million copies printed each year. The Vienna Tourist Board also produced around 100 videos and more than 500 photos of Vienna as a destination in 2022. Also available free of charge to businesses in the city’s visitor economy, the images are used to promote the destination both at home and abroad: print-ready images of Vienna can be found at photo.vienna.info, while full HD and 4K video material is available at footage.vienna.info.