Overnight stays in the May-July quarter, the first half of the summer season, rose 2.5 percent from a year earlier to 31.2 million as a rise in foreign tourism that makes up two-thirds of the sector offset a dip in domestic demand, the Statistics Office said.

Overnight stays in the first seven months of 2012 rose to a record 82.2 million.

Tourism directly accounts for more than 5 percent of Austrian economic output and 7 percent of jobs.

A separate report from the central bank showed lending to business customers rose 2.8 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, in contrast to a 0.6 percent fall in the wider euro zone given the sovereign debt crisis in some member countries.

Bank lending to companies in Austria has been recovering steadily since hitting a nadir of -1.5 percent in December 2009.

Lending to households rose 0.4 percent in the second quarter.

Growth in Austria's export-dependent economy slowed to 0.2 percent in the second quarter on both an annual and a quarterly basis, according to the WIFO research institute's flash estimate.

Economists forecast the Austrian economy will expand by around 0.8 percent this year. (Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Susan Fenton)

• A Permanent Economic Emergency