The government's corona support will be discontinued, but the cabinet will continue to stick to travel restrictions for practically all countries outside Europe. Travel industry organization ANVR is furious about this. The travel industry will carry out trips if the customer so desires and the tour operator can arrange the trip safely.
In the letter to the House of Representatives about the support and recovery package from the fourth quarter, the cabinet states that anyone who wants to can also be fully vaccinated. Contact-limiting measures can therefore be lifted further and further and the economy reopened. In this context, the government points to the disruptive effect of support for the recovery of the economy.
"That may apply to most sectors, but not to the outgoing travel industry: with the exception of EU destinations, this cabinet still advises against travel advice for virtually the rest of the world. It will not lift these travel restrictions, despite the high vaccination coverage in If you make it impossible for a sector to work, you must help and provide support: it is either one or the other. In other sectors that are limited due to corona, support will be continued temporarily. The swamp, Minister Blok even said 'that recovery of holiday trips to distant destinations could take a few more years before people start doing that again.' ANVR: Together with the ministries, we took many tens of thousands of Dutch people back from their travel at the start of the crisis at high costs for the travel sector. And of course Minister Blok is now killing the travel industry. Many entrepreneurs are offended by Blok's doomsday scenario. With an increase in the number of vaccinated people in the Netherlands but also in other countries, the cabinet should relax travel restrictions."
Entrepreneurs in the travel industry have barely been able to carry out trips due to the current strict travel restrictions imposed by the cabinet. Despite promises from this same cabinet at the start of the corona crisis, the travel industry has never received decent compensation for the cancellation damage due to all the travel bans. The travel industry is therefore still pushing for that compensation.
Naturally, the travel industry also made use of NOW and TVL (admittedly the lowest percentage of all sectors), but it has also undergone significant restructuring itself. Thousands of employees, more than 30% of the workforce, have had to give up their work in the travel sector. Entrepreneurs have seen (equity) capital in their company evaporate and have meanwhile become head over heels in debt with the bank, through deferred taxes and with the Voucher Fund to keep their heads above water. In the middle of the high season, the somewhat recovering travel market collapsed again due to this cabinet's 'Dancing-with-Jansen' policy. The market then picked up again. A few days ago, ABN-AMRO presented an analysis that aid to the travel sector is very sensible in view of the expected recovery. Stopping support right now will be the death blow for many entrepreneurs. In view of the increasing number of vaccinated people in the Netherlands, the ANVR urges in any case to adjust the travel-limiting advice due to corona by ending the orange corona travel bans for travel worldwide, according to the ANVR.
"This has already been done for Europe, so why not also for countries outside Europe? The ANVR will support its members travel companies in this regard; of course, only if the customer wants to make the trip and the travel entrepreneur can carry out the trip properly. We are already seeing more and more customers who are eager to travel again, also outside Europe, and who are done with the current travel advice, especially in view of the differences in advice between the EU countries," says Frank Oostdam.