Tourism in figures

The Vienna Tourist Board offers Vienna’s academia a platform and has reinterpreted isotypes for its own statistics. The present infographics are based on a visual language developed by Otto Neurath in the early 20th century to illustrate statistics using signs and symbols. It is used to this day for road signs and guide systems (subways, airports). Otto Neurath (1882, Vienna – 1945, Oxford) was an Austrian scientist who achieved considerable fame, particularly outside Austria; according to US American historian William M. Johnston he was “one of the most neglected 20th century geniuses.” In 1924/25, he founded the Austrian Museum for Social and Economic Affairs in Vienna, which he set up as a popular education institute for social enlightenment. It was at that time that he developed the “Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics” which is considered the precursor to the infographics so widespread today and which was used both nationally and internationally in magazines and exhibitions. In 1932, on the initiative of Otto Neurath the “Mundaneum Institute” and the “International Foundation for Visual Education” were established in The Hague. He changed the name of the “Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics” to the “International System of Typographic Picture Education” (Isotype) with which he achieved significant success above all in the USA. During the Second World War, Neurath had to flee to Britain, where he was initially placed in an internment camp. Thanks to the intercession of various individuals, among others Albert Einstein, he was finally freed and subsequently taught Logical Empiricism and Social Sciences at Oxford University.