The director of the National Association of Travel Agencies (YUTA) of Serbia, Aleksandar Senicic, said today that talks were underway with representatives of the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications on assistance to travel agencies, guides and car rental agencies to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
“One-time, non-refundable state aid to hotels is a good model of assistance, so travel agencies, guides and car rental agencies expect similar support,” Senicic told Beta.
He said that helping that tourist part of the economy, since the season is coming to an end and no significant income can be expected, would help it “overwinter”.
He added that the citizens of Serbia can currently travel to Turkey and Egypt, which announces the introduction of tests on COVID-19, then to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania.
Senicic said that state aid to travel agencies, guides and car rental agencies of about 15-20 million euros would solve part of the problem of that part of the economy and confirm that the sector is important to the state.
“The distribution of aid would be simple because the criterion could be in which categories travel agencies are classified, and car rental agencies are recognized by the number of cars while guides could get help only on the basis of contracts they had before the pandemic and paid taxes,” Senicic said.
As he said, special help should be given to travel agencies that sell Serbia as a brand and bring guests from abroad.
He reminded that Croatia subsidized salaries for employees in agencies for three months, partially exempted them from taxes and planned large support from European funds, and in the meantime, travel agencies also received financial support from local budgets.
Montenegro is planning long-term assistance to the tourism industry, and this year it subsidized employees’ salaries and reduced the value added tax (VAT) on food in hotels from 21 percent to seven percent.
Germany has “covered” fixed costs of 40 percent to 80 percent for companies in the economy for three months, depending on the drop in sales, and the aid is determined based on the size of the company, but the maximum is 50,000 euros per month, Nova reports.
