Letter sent by tourism players to the authorities: It is a dramatic situation. None of the aid measures are being applied. The suspension of vouchers – another handful of dirt on the coffin of tourism. Decisions are pushing us into economic collapse! TurismProfit.ro wrote yesterday, 15:30<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Federation of Romanian Tourism Employers (FPTR) has sent an open letter to the authorities explaining the dramatic situation of Romanian tourism, severely affected by the pandemic, as well as the fact that none of the legislated aid measures are currently being applied in a real way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the contrary, the latest measure proposed now, through the budget project, the final form of which is to be established in Parliament, also suspends holiday vouchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTourism\u201d is not just a word, but an entire ecosystem made up of hundreds of thousands of employees, owners, and suppliers \u2013 over whom the specter of unemployment and bankruptcy looms, but also the only way through which Romanians have the chance to \u201cheal\u201d from the major stress induced by the pandemic and the uncertainties generated by the question \u201cWhat will tomorrow bring?\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Globally, public-private dialogue in tourism has been what determined the development of tourist destinations and led to their establishment and transformation into true poles of economic growth. Regarding Romania, the reality is quite different: we are faced with actions and initiatives that have no connection to this dialogue. After working for months, starting in April 2020, alongside Government representatives to identify and substantiate concrete solutions for this sector of activity with Romanian capital, predominant in tourism, we are witnessing decisions that push us into economic collapse! Here we are in mid-February 2021, and none of the legislated measures are truly being applied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Measure M2 is blocked, as we learned indirectly from media channels, due to a \u201clack of funding.\u201d Moreover, measure M2 is a general measure for all fields, not just for tourism, as it was initially conceived and agreed upon with our representatives. This is despite tourism being the only sector of activity that was closed and received no compensation\/indemnity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Measure M3 is blocked for various reasons, pushing the access to funds into a distant and uncertain future;<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. GEO 224\/2020 (the measure providing for compensation of 20% of turnover losses) was supposed to be specific to tourism, but it has not been applied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the European Union granted a sufficient budget to support companies affected by the pandemic, especially for the tourism branch, and the Romanian Government promised an infusion of 500 million euros for tourism, the money has not been allocated even to this moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prospects are even bleaker because the elimination of holiday vouchers has been announced, which means the destruction of tourism by an amount exceeding 300 million EUR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Holiday vouchers are a form of support for the employees who benefited from them, given that European statistics show Romanians allocate among the smallest budgets for holidays, and in times of crisis, this is the first expense they cut from the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starting in 2017, due to the introduction of holiday vouchers, the number of classified accommodation spaces increased sharply and evidently, with 128,144 accommodation spaces being classified by 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, a triple number of accommodation units. Statistics indicate that, in addition to reducing “black market” tourism and increasing collection rates, holiday vouchers stimulated investments in tourism, which implicitly led to an increase in the number of jobs in tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By eliminating these holiday payment instruments, the tourism needs of many Romanians who cannot afford to practice tourism even in their own country will disappear!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FPTR further states that affecting tourism leads to the immediate impact on multiple other sectors of activity \u2013 suppliers of goods and materials, service providers, various producers, local economies, family budgets, etc. Budgets of families who will face income reductions anyway and who will no longer afford holidays, thus limiting access to health and the natural resources offered by our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given the epidemiological context, in which the European Commission established as a priority, alongside urgent measures to limit the spread of the virus, the addressing of economic consequences\u2014it being well-known that tourism is majorly affected by this pandemic\u2014and taking into account that the impact of the pandemic caused by the Sars-COV-2 virus on the Romanian tourism sector is disastrous, FPTR requests:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only in this way could the major impact that the pandemic has on the tourism sector and related services in Romania be diminished and contribute to its survival. These measures would prove that the current Government is responsible toward the Romanian citizen, toward Romanian capital, and that it is capable of respecting the commitments made to those who put their trust in them when they participated in formally organized dialogues, states the open letter submitted by FPTR.<\/p>\n\n\n
FPTR is calling for the immediate operationalization of the 20% turnover compensation measure, the allocation of funds for the M2 grant scheme, and the swift issuance of holiday vouchers.<\/p>\nWhy are holiday vouchers considered vital for the industry?<\/strong>\n Holiday vouchers have tripled the number of classified accommodation units since 2017, reduced the “black market” in tourism, and allowed low-income Romanians to afford domestic travel.<\/p>\nWhat is the current status of the promised government aid?<\/strong>\n According to FPTR, measures like M2 and M3 are currently blocked due to lack of funding or administrative delays, despite promises of a 500 million euro infusion.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Letter sent by tourism players to the authorities: It is a dramatic situation. None of the aid measures are being applied. The suspension of vouchers – another handful of dirt on the coffin of tourism. Decisions are pushing us into economic collapse! TurismProfit.ro wrote yesterday, 15:30 The Federation of Romanian Tourism Employers (FPTR) has sent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":70358,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2858],"tags":[4208,173,97],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-117943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tourism","tag-fptr-en","tag-vacanta","tag-vouchere"],"article_style_override":"on","post-style":"style2","post_via":"","post-top-image":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/turism-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117943","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"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117943"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=117943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}