Romanian tourism agencies want tax deduction for bringing foreign tourists to the country

The National Tourism Agencies Association (ANAT) has asked tourism minister Mircea Dobre to think of a small tax deduction for agencies bringing foreign tourists to the country. Tour operators specialized in incoming tourism should be exempt from paying a small amount of the tax on profit for each night a foreign tourist spends in the country, ANAT has proposed, Profit.ro reports. “For each night, a certain sum could be deposited in an imaginary account and deducted from the profit tax. This way, it is not a sum the Government gives, but it is a way to support us,” said ANAT president Alin Burcea, quoted by Profit.ro. According to Burcea, only 40 agencies of the 2,600 active in Romania bring foreign tourists to Romania. The rest take Romanian tourists abroad or in the country. The ANAT president also argued in favor of other measures that would support incoming tourism. One is the establishment of an incoming school, which would teach students how to attract foreign tourists to the country, and the other is an incoming fair, where foreign tourism agencies would come and see the local tourist destination offering. The incoming school would be launched this fall, while the fair should kick off next spring. According to data from the National Statistics Institute (INS), some 2.5 million foreign tourists visited Romania last year, but more than half were in the country for business and work. On the topic of the statistics on foreign tourists, Florin Jianu, the president of the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Council (CNIPMMR) and a former minister for the business environment, says the tourism ministry should look into how the data on incoming tourists is collected by the INS as it does not always reflect the reality, Profit.ro writes. Jianu argued for a reduction of the VAT for tourism agencies, as it happened in the case of hotels. “The minister should go to the European Commission and impose the possibility of a 9% or 0% VAT for tourism agencies, because the European Commission regulation doesn’t allow it at the moment. It certainly would be a discussion worth having and which should be started in Romania,” Jianu said, quoted by Profit.ro. Jianu also proposed an increased support, based on a points system, for those looking to start a tourism investment if they bring foreign tourists to the country.