{"id":112167,"date":"2025-11-05T09:06:53","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T07:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/anat-giving-up-vouchers-would-cost-the-economy-eur-343-million-of-gdp\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T16:36:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T14:36:14","slug":"anat-giving-up-vouchers-would-cost-the-economy-eur-343-million-of-gdp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/anat-giving-up-vouchers-would-cost-the-economy-eur-343-million-of-gdp\/","title":{"rendered":"ANAT: Giving up vouchers would cost the economy EUR 343 million of GDP"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]The National Association of Tourist Agencies (ANAT) warns of the negative economic and social impact of abolishing holiday vouchers, a measure considered one of the most effective in the last 15 years. According to a study by the Academy of Economic Studies (ASE), such a decision could lead to a loss of around \u20ac342.9m in national GDP and the abolition of 17,000 jobs, with domestic tourism already showing signs of recession in 2025. <\/p>\n

The ASE study, conducted in 2025, indicates that the elimination of holiday vouchers would generate a net loss of 1.744 billion lei (about 342.9 million EUR) to GDP and would abolish 17,000 jobs nationwide. In the HORECA, transportation and local leisure sectors alone, the losses would amount to 9,100 jobs. Each one million lei (about 196.6 thousand EUR) allocated to vouchers supports more than 1,670 jobs, and each leu invested in this system generates more than 1.6 lei in GDP. According to the study, 90% of the income generated by vouchers is taxed, a relevant factor in the context of Romania’s informal economy, which is estimated at 29% of GDP, compared to an EU average of 10.8%. <\/p>\n

The negative signals from the market are already visible. Data from the Ministry of Finance, taken over by ANAT, shows an 85% drop in the value of vouchers granted in September 2025, from EUR 38.03 million in September 2024 to just EUR 5.96 million. In parallel, August 2025 saw a 6.3% drop in the number of tourists staying compared to the previous year. Adrian Voican, vice-president of ANAT, points out that this is the first drop since the pandemic, with a contraction of more than 4% for three months at the peak of the season. Some counties saw severe falls, such as Arge\u0219 (-38%), Harghita (-17.8%) and Prahova (-15%), while Sibiu and Constan\u021ba saw increases. In his opinion, the main cause is the fall in purchasing power, not prices. <\/p>\n

ANAT rejects the idea that vouchers have led to price hikes, noting that there are no studies showing a causal link. Eurostat data shows a 9.5% rise in the price of tourist services in Romania, below the level in countries without similar systems, such as Estonia (+39%) or Bulgaria (+23%). The association also highlights the role of vouchers in stimulating investment: the number of classified accommodation units has increased fivefold, from 6,300 in 2006 to 28,900 in 2025, and 28 four- and five-star hotels affiliated to international brands have recently opened. Another 15 are planned in cities such as Craiova, Bac\u0103u, Satu Mare, Cluj and Arad, investments that are now jeopardized. ANAT is therefore calling for the vouchers to be maintained, their value to be updated in line with inflation and the scheme to be extended to the private sector.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]The National Association of Tourist Agencies (ANAT) warns of the negative economic and social impact of abolishing holiday vouchers, a measure considered one of the most effective in the last 15 years. According to a study by the Academy of Economic Studies (ASE), such a decision could lead to a loss of around \u20ac342.9m…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":112168,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2858],"tags":[3186],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-112167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tourism","tag-anat-en"],"article_style_override":"","post-style":"","post_via":"","post-top-image":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112171,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112167\/revisions\/112171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112167"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=112167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}