Travel agencies in Romania to create mutual guarantee fund

Tourists will be able to recover all the money paid on holidays if the agencies where they purchased the travel packages become insolvent or bankrupt, after the establishment of a mutual guarantee fund, said Alin Burcea, president of the National Association of Travel Agencies (ANAT). “The Guarantee Fund, which we have been working on in the last six years, will bring peace to tourists,” said Burcea, reports local Economica.net. All the travel agencies will contribute to this fund with a certain amount. The fund will probably have revenues of several millions of euro, considering that Romania has about 1,500 agencies, Burcea added. The mutual guarantee fund will not work retroactively, but only from the moment it enters into force. The fund needs to enter into force this year; if not, Romania is under the threat of an infringement procedure, the ANAT president added. In the last years, hundreds of tourists have been affected by the fact that the agencies from which they had acquired their tickets went bankrupt. editor@romania-insider.com