Salzburg Hotels: How to Book a Decent Room

Finding a hotel in Salzburg can be a hassle, in particular during the main season. This main season lasts from January to December – well, seriously, it lasts from late May to early September and also includes the weekends of December. During this time we strongly recommend to arrange your bookings in advance. For emergencies, the tourist information centre (for example at the main station) offer a booking service, but last minute rooms are usually more expensive than rooms that were booked in advance.

If you plan on staying in Salzburg for a few days only, you should try to be close to the city centre. This is where most attractions are and where you will spend most of your time. Fortunately, most hotels are in this area, too. If you travel on a budget, you might want to look out for so-called “Pensionen”. These are B&Bs and usually a tad cheaper, though you probably won’t make a real bargain these days. Youth hostels are really cheap and usually cleaner and safer than in many other countries. There are several in Salzburg.

Back to the hotels: Internet retailers often purchase a certain stock of rooms at a fixed rate and sell them online – here you might be lucky and find very reasonably offers. In any case, they probably won’t be more expensive than booking your room directly at the reception. For this website, we decided to refer to Booking.com, which is one of the biggest providers of online booking services and has a portfolio of several dozen hotels in the city of Salzburg only.

Hotels Outside of the City

Speaking of the city of Salzburg: If you stay for longer than just a few days and you have an interest in the surroundings as well, why don’t you look for a hotel outside of Salzburg? Public transportation is very efficient and staying outside of the city could provide you of an in-depth experience of rural Austria. The “Salzburger Seenland” lake area North of the city has some very scenic spots to offer and private accommodation can be quite reasonable.

Due to the heavy tourism, most villages around Salzburg run their own tourist information services and they usually know how to refer visitors to Pensionen or B&Bs. There are several hotels, too, but we recommend an “either or” approach: If you decide to stay on the countryside, try private accommodation. If you prefer a hotel, stay in the city and enjoy to be at the heart of the Old Town.

A final word: The most famous hotels in Salzburg, such as the local branch of the Sacher, target the high-end visitor – usually guests of the Salzburg Festival. However, the vast majority of tourist that come to Salzburg are financially less confident than the Royal family of this and there. The hotel industry accommodates this and there are few hotels as luxury – and as expensive – as the exclusive Sacher, Goldener Hirsch or Bristol. Once again, online booking services will allow you to specify what class of hotel you are looking for.

Salzburg Hotels: How to Book a Decent Room

Hotels Outside of the City

Further Reading