New digital system launched to protect Vienna’s tourism and gastronomy businesses

Over the last few months, different initiatives launched by the local government have prevented over 60,000 job losses in these sectors

Coming off from a high after the final days of the Vienna Gastro Voucher, local authorities in the Austrian capital have announced the launch of a new project that will further promote tourism in the city.

Innovative methods lead to excellent results

During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, authorities in Vienna launched the city’s Gastro Voucher in order to protect jobs in the tourism and gastronomy industries. The goal of the voucher was to provide citizens with the opportunity to visit their favourite places while the city covers the cost – essentially providing immediate relief to businesses while also helping the mental health of locals.

In the end, this scheme saw the issuing of over 950,000 vouchers, worth 30 million euros. Thus, the expenses covered by the city proved essential for the retention of jobs and prevented over 60,000 layoffs across Vienna.

Now, however, the time of the Gastro Voucher has come to an end and the local government has put forwards its newest proposal – a digital guest registration system that will make visiting Vienna even simpler and will provide long-term support for the city’s tourism businesses.

Among the advantages of this new system are the fact that it is both extremely simple to use as well as safe. All data used in the system is encrypted several times and is automatically deleted after 28 days. The restaurant itself does not see it as it is only available to health authorities on request in the event of infection.

The system functions through the scanning of a QR code when guests arrive and enter the required data on their mobile phone (name, email, telephone number). Once the guest leaves, they can check out of the system with similar ease.

Trials of the new system will begin mid-October and will be provided free of charge to over 6000 Viennese gastronomies and some 1800 coffee houses around the city. The system will begin operating in full sometime at the start of November.