Romanians may buy EUR 380 mln worth of holidays using vouchers this year

The touristic services acquired using holiday vouchers amounted to EUR 10 million last year, according to information presented by the National Associations of Tourism Agencies (ANAT). The amount was almost four times higher compared to 2015, and six times higher compared to 2014. ANAT estimates that the value will increase almost 38 times this year, if the Government grants holiday vouchers to all the public employees, as it promised. Each public employee would thus get a holiday voucher worth RON 1,450 (EUR 321), to pay for a vacation in Romania. Thus, the holiday vouchers should help increase the domestic tourism sector. For now, the holiday vouchers are granted only by some private companies, as public institutions had a ban on granting holiday tickets due to budget restrictions. Last year, some 1.1 million holiday vouchers were granted by private companies. In addition to this, the local tour operators would also like the Government to lower the VAT rate for tourism services from 20% to 9%. Romania needs an incoming national policy, because a strong country is one that knows how to attract tourists, said yesterday the president of the National Association of Travel Agencies in Romania (ANAT) Alin Burcea. “With 2.5 million foreign tourists in 2016, we are, at world level, a bad joke,” he added. Of these, more than 1 million come from business, corporate events. Romania has around 2,400 licensed travel agencies, but only 40 carry out incoming tourism, the ANAT president added. Number of incoming foreign tourists to Romania up to 2.47 million in 2016 editor@romania-insider.com