The settlement of holiday vouchers in Romania recorded a drastic decrease of 52.6% in the first two months of 2026 compared to the same period last year, according to Ministry of Finance data centralized by the National Association of Travel Agencies (ANAT). The total value of settlements fell to approximately EUR 18.74 million, compared to EUR 39.54 million in the first two months of 2025, against the backdrop of a tourism trade deficit currently standing at approximately -EUR 4.5 billion.<\/p>\n
In January 2026, the value of vouchers issued was EUR 8.86 million, and settlements totaled EUR 9.40 million, including previously issued titles. February recorded issuances of EUR 8.99 million and settlements of EUR 9.34 million. The amounts related to vouchers returned during this interval totaled approximately EUR 0.78 million. Overall, the issuance of these payment instruments decreased by 12.4%, from EUR 20.38 million in 2025 to EUR 17.85 million in the current year. Adrian Voican, Vice President of ANAT, emphasized that incentives are essential for low-income families and for supporting the 2,000 ongoing investment projects, valued at EUR 6 billion. The industry is calling for the program’s extension for the 2027-2031 period to counteract the EUR 9.5 billion currency outflows reported by the BNR for foreign travel and to improve hotel occupancy rates, which in January 2026 was only 20%.<\/p>\n
Why did holiday voucher settlements decrease in 2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n Settlements dropped by 52.6% due to a reduction in voucher issuance and a significant tourism trade deficit, impacting the overall volume of domestic travel spending.<\/p>\n What is the current state of Romania’s tourism trade balance?<\/strong><\/p>\n Romania faces a tourism trade deficit of approximately -4.5 billion EUR, with 9.5 billion EUR spent by citizens on foreign travel according to BNR data.<\/p>\n What are the industry’s recommendations for the voucher program?<\/strong><\/p>\n ANAT advocates for extending the holiday voucher program for the 2027-2031 period to support low-income families and protect 6 billion EUR in tourism investments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The settlement of holiday vouchers in Romania recorded a drastic decrease of 52.6% in the first two months of 2026 compared to the same period last year, according to Ministry of Finance data centralized by the National Association of Travel Agencies (ANAT). The total value of settlements fell to approximately EUR 18.74 million, compared to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":90878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2858],"tags":[2898],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-125304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tourism","tag-romania-en"],"article_style_override":"on","post-style":"style2","post_via":[{"title":"agerpres.ro | 03.04","post_source_url":"https:\/\/agerpres.ro"}],"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\/125304","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=125304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125304"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=125304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}