The Verkehrsbüro Group is Austria’s leading tourism group and has been successful for more than ninety years. Österreichisches Verkehrsbüro AG is the umbrella organization of the group of companies and is responsible for the orientation of its business divisions and subsidiaries. With the core divisions of the hotel business, leisure tourism and business tourism, the group offers a wide range of tourism activities, geared to prevailing customer needs – from private customers and corporate customers to public institutions.
With 29 Austria Trend Hotels the Verkehrsbüro Group operates primarily in Austria and Eastern Europe. The number of hotels is constantly being increased, with a focus on the four-star category, with a view to expanding the group’s market leadership and capacities in the area of meetings, incentives, conventions and events (MICE). In the sector of low-budget design hotels, the group has entered into a joint venture with the Motel One Group; the first Motel One hotels opened in Vienna and Salzburg. The Verkehrsbüro Group also operates Palais Events with the historic locations of Palais Ferstel, Palais Daun-Kinsky, Wiener Börsensäle and the Café Central.
The Group offers quality-certified travel products through 120 travel agencies under the “Ruefa” brand and through the group’s own online travel web portals. Certification of Ruefa travel agents ensures that the advice given is always of high quality. As a tour operator, the Verkehrsbüro Group markets quality Ruefa- and Jumbo products in the specialized and niche segment. In addition, the group has holdings in travel agencies in Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary.
Tours are also successfully offered via direct marketing through Eurotours International – the leading incoming agency and one of the biggest direct tour operators in Central Europe – above all as part of a cooperative agreement with a discount grocery chain in Austria. This tour cooperation has since been expanded to include Switzerland, Germany and Slovenia.
The Verkehrsbüro Group is number one on the Austrian business travel market with Verkehrsbüro Business Travel and AX Travel Management. Verkehrsbüro Business Travel maintains an ISO-certified service at six business travel centres to handle business trips for small and medium sized companies and groups. As a technology leader AX Travel Management has a global network and internationally standardized control standards. Some forty congresses and corporate events are organized every year under the brand “Austropa Interconvention”.
Our Brands: RUEFA
The Verkehrsbüro Group has the densest network of branch offices in Austria, encompassing 120 travel agencies. With its leading presence on the market, Ruefa ensures proximity to the customer in every Austrian province.
Ruefa stands for the exceptional quality of a new generation of travel agencies. All travel agents receive comprehensive training, and customer counselling is certified. All travel agencies have had the stylish Ruefa look since 2010. The innovatively redesigned interior of Ruefa travel agencies has done away with conventional catalogue racks.
As a travel agency, Verkehrsbüro Group with its own brand Ruefa, is successfully in the special and niche segment (apart from the large-volume mass tourism business), and has grown particularly in recent years in the cruise, study tour and southern and eastern Africa sector. Sports tours under the eybl Reisen by Ruefa brand are another successful segment.
