Is it Austria that has the stands in the airport for tourists who thought they were buying tickets to Australia, or is it the other way around?

I think it's a myth that originated from an ad: https://www.vol.at/2023/11/397526796_1104257417472438_811840...

I suppose it's difficult to make that mistake because plane tickets are to cities, not countries as a whole.

As a real story, I knew a guy who had a B&B near a beach called San Francisco, in Spain, and he regularly had to cancel bookings from people who thought it was in the US city of the same name, though :)

Apparently people confuse cities when flying too, here’s an article about a passenger going to the wrong Sydney, and more examples:

https://simpleflying.com/ameican-airlines-passenger-flies-si...

I am not familiar enough with air travel that I can say either way.

But austria and australia regularily exchange mail that got sent to the wrong country.