Record overnight stays, declining profits

157 million overnight stays. The record stands.
157.27 million overnight stays in Austria in 2025 – the highest figure since digital records began in 1974, as announced by Statistics Austria at the end of January 2026. The 150 million mark was exceeded for the third time in a row. The number of arrivals rose by 3.1 per cent to 48.17 million. And the current 2025/26 winter season is continuing the trend: at the halfway point – from November 2025 to January 2026 – 36.11 million overnight stays were recorded, an increase of 5.6 per cent. January 2026 alone brought 16.43 million overnight stays, the highest January figure ever recorded.

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The media response was as expected: Record overnight stays despite lack of snow. Record start to the winter season. Tourism on course for growth. The headlines were rolling in, and they are factually correct.

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What is often missing from these reports is the other half of the story.

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The 2025 fitness check: full beds, tight margins

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In November 2025, the Austrian Hotel and Tourism Bank (OeHT), Prodinger Tourism Consulting and Kohl & Partner published the Fitness Check 2025 – based for the first time on more than 1,000 evaluated businesses and annual financial statements of Austrian holiday hotels. This makes the study one of the largest business benchmarks in the Alpine hotel industry.

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The editors' conclusion can be summarized as follows: The industry is currently far from a revenue disaster, but equally far from truly relaxed conditions.

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Capacity utilization remains stable. Energy prices have calmed down somewhat after reaching an all-time high. The cost of goods sold has been optimised slightly. At the same time, staff costs continue to rise significantly, driven by collective agreement adjustments and structural staff shortages.

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In the upper quartiles of the benchmark evaluation, employee expenses per full-time equivalent now exceed €50,000 per year in several segments.

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In their analyses, representatives of the institutions involved point out that personnel has become the central cost factor for many businesses and thus has a significant impact on margins. At the same time, the evaluations show that the operating results of many establishments are coming under pressure: despite stable demand, many places are unable to implement price increases at the same rate as costs are rising.

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The operating profit (GOP) – the key figure that shows what actually remains after all running costs and before interest and depreciation – remains at a comparatively low level in many segments.

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There are also limitations on the revenue side: in the traditional 4-star hotel sector, only moderate growth or, in some cases, stagnation in revenue per room has been evident recently.

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Full houses, but no corresponding increase in profits.

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Spring 2026: Good booking situation, but increasing pressure on earnings

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Current assessments from the industry show that this is not just a retrospective problem. While the booking situation over the holidays and in the first weeks of winter appears stable in many places, industry analyses also point to increasing pressure on earnings.

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One reason for this is changing guest behavior. Analyses by the Austrian Hotel Association show that many guests are reducing their incidental expenses, shortening their stays or choosing cheaper room categories more often. Developments such as these have a direct impact on revenue per guest – without being reflected in the overnight stay statistics.

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The ÖHV Hotel Congress in Linz in January 2026, attended by more than 600 industry representatives, also addressed these issues. Under the motto ‘Simplicity – making things (more) simple’, discussions focused on questions of reducing bureaucracy, structural cost burdens and greater entrepreneurial freedom.

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A debate that shows that within the industry, the focus is currently less on records and more on efficiency, cost structures and profitability.

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Overnight stays measure demand, not profitability.

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That is the crux of the problem:
overnight stay statistics measure how many people stayed in hotels. They say nothing about how much of that remains at the end.

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The economic reality of a business is not reflected in overnight stay statistics, but in the profit and loss statement.

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Those who measure their hotel solely in terms of occupancy or total revenue evaluate a business based on key figures that often reveal operational risks too late. This blind spot can be particularly problematic in the holiday hotel industry, which is characterized by pronounced seasonality, high fixed costs and fluctuating booking lead times.

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If the cost structure is not actively managed during busy months such as December or January, the effects often only become apparent weeks later – for example, when the booking forecast declines in spring and adjustments are hardly possible anymore.

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Analyses from industry consultants have long indicated that many companies are finding it difficult to implement price increases at the same rate as their own costs are rising. The result is declining operating results – and, in combination with higher interest rates, increasingly difficult investment conditions.

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From the rear-view mirror to the steering wheel

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The real problem here is not a lack of figures, but rather the time lag.

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Many hoteliers only know how the past month actually went financially weeks or months after the end of the season. By this point, decisions that could still change anything are no longer possible.

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What businesses need is not more extensive reporting, but clarity at an earlier stage:

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• Where are personnel costs getting out of hand in relation to capacity utilization?
  
  
• Where is the cost of goods sold exceeding the target value?
  
  
• Which fixed costs continue to run even though occupancy is falling?
  
  
• And above all: is there enough cash flow for the coming weeks?
  
  

This requires a database that brings together relevant systems – such as PMS, POS, HR, accounting or energy data – and processes the information in such a way that decisions are based on current figures.

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profitize is an AI-supported financial planning and analysis platform that implements this approach for the hotel industry in the DACH region: no more data, but clearer decision-making bases – updated daily, comprehensible and prepared specifically for the industry.

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This article was inspired by Stefan Brida, partner at Kohl & Partner.

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