Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News 

The mayor of arguably one of Europe’s most favourite destinations for Chinese tourists says locals have been seeing many cancellations since the virus outbreak because of restrictions on flights out of China.

The sleepy Austrian lakeside town of Hallstatt was little known in China until Chinese architects working for the China Mine Metal Group decided to recreate it back home. The Chinese version of the village includes a copy of the 1860 Protestant Christuskirche (Church of our Lord) which is a restaurant and concert hall. Many of the other iconic local houses were also recreated.

It was billed as a holiday destination for the wealthy attempting to escape grim factories in Boluo in Guangdong province and the carbon copy also made the original in Austria one of the most popular and destinations for Chinese visitors, which this year reached record numbers after it was also compared to the fictional home of Elsa the Disney Princess on the frozen series.

Up until recently buses bringing in mostly Chinese visitors to the UNESCO world cultural heritage site have left streets clogged and local guest house is full, but now with the virus the situation has changed.

Mayor Alexander Scheutz from the Austrian social Democrat party said any landlords had informed him that Chinese guests were warning that they are unlikely to take up places because they were unable to leave the country.

He said however that there was still plenty of other guests and also said nobody was worried by the health indications with regards to the fact that many of the guests in the area were Chinese.

In Austria no special precautions are being taken at local airports for Chinese visitors, and the mayor said that no one from any health body had warned him that people in the village need to take special precautions – he said it had not even been suggested that they wear face masks.

There were no exact numbers he said for cancellations because many of the Chinese visitors were simply making the trip for the day before heading back to their main base for their holiday in Austria.

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