July, 1997 - The supervisory board approved the take over of 100% of the shares of the "Trend Hotels Austria" (owned by HTH of Bank Austria).

The Verkehrsbüro/Austrian National Travel Agency, which is the largest touristical enterprise in Austria, already operated 11 hotels, with about 2.000 beds in Austria, including "Astoria****", "Europa****", "Rathauspark****" in Vienna and "Schillerpark*****" in Linz.

The Trend Hotels group consists of 12 hotels with about 3.00 beds, including "Lebenberg Castle" in Kitzbühel/The Tirol, in Vienna "Ananas", "Donauzentrum", "Favorita", "Bosei" and "Vienna", The "Seehotel" in Rust located at the Neusiedler lake, as well as hotels in Carinthia, Lower Austria and Styria.

The Verkehrsbüro/Austrian National Travel Agency now disposes over 6.500 beds and is therefor the largest hotelgroup in Austria, with about 1.600 employees.

The group-turnover will reach 5,1 billion Austrian Shillings.

The Verkehrsbüro/Austrian National Travel Agency is owned by HTH of Bank Austria (62%), Galler Holding (17%), Austrian Airlines (15%) and Wiener Städitsche Versicherung (6%).