Already at check-in

Tourists will receive a public transport network card in future

The province of Salzburg is setting a milestone in terms of the transport transition: from July 2025, tourists will pay a mobility contribution in addition to the overnight stay tax and will receive a ticket for public transport throughout the province in return. The additional revenue generated will be used to further expand public transport services, announced Stefan Schnöll (ÖVP), Deputy Governor for Transport and Tourism, on Thursday.

As a first step, the mobility surcharge will be 50 cents per day. To ensure that locals, who can currently use the public transport service for one euro per day via the 365-euro ticket, are not disadvantaged, the contribution for tourists will be increased to 1.10 euros per day from July 1, 2027. Holidaymakers can register for public transport when they check in at their accommodation and receive their ticket immediately - either in printed form or via an app on their cell phone. "It has to be as simple as possible," explained Johannes Gfrerer, Managing Director of the Salzburg Transport Association.

"We can already talk about a paradigm shift here, this is unique in Austria," said Schnöll. The special thing about it is that it is a pay-as-you-go system because the additional revenue is used to finance the expansion of the service. According to current calculations, an additional 23 million euros per year would be available for the full expansion. Although the previous income from individual sales would have to be deducted from this, which would then be lost, Gfrerer assumes that the majority of the 23 million euros can be used to expand the service. "We will be able to present this in all districts," announced Schnöll, who also wants to promote so-called micro public transport, a system with small vehicles that bridge the so-called "last mile" from the public transport stop to the front door on demand.

The state has also already calculated an initial climate balance sheet that the mobility contribution can bring: The potential savings calculated via "klimaktiv" amount to almost 17,000 tons of carbon dioxide, over 61,000 kilos of nitrogen oxide and a good 900 kilos of particulate matter per year.