Alin Burcea: The FPTR proposal regarding the exit tax has as a tourist model North Korea, Afghanistan or communist Romania!
Mr. Alin Burcea responds to those from FPTR, who proposed tax for holidays abroad!
In the European Union, free movement is a fundamental right! As a tourist with over 35 years of experience, I note with surprise and indignation the absurd proposal of the Federation of Romanian Tourism Boards (FPTR) to impose a tax on Romanian tourists traveling outside the country, a tax suggested under the pretext of promotion Romania. This idea is completely unjustified and anti-competitive.
The communist mentality of some Romanian hoteliers, who focus exclusively on increasing prices and not on improving the quality of services, is an insult to the tourism industry and Romanian tourists. These hoteliers seem to want to shut Romanian tourists out of the country, forcing them to stay in expensive and unkempt hotels. It is unacceptable to suggest that this would be the development model for Romanian tourism!
We cannot ignore the fact that we are part of the European Union, where the free movement of citizens is a fundamental right. The Ministry of Tourism does not want to allocate resources to promote our country effectively, because these amounts cannot be consumed.
We have Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) that collect money, a lot of money for promotion, but they do nothing. Why don't I? why am i staying Why do we need new taxes, when we have tourist, resort taxes?
Mr. Nicolae Istrate, vice-president of FPTR, was party secretary at ITHR (Enterprise of Tourism, Hotels, Restaurants from the time of communism) Bucharest. That's probably why he has this mindset.
We, those who think lucidly and realistically in tourism, whether we are travel agents, hoteliers or transporters, believe that every destination should stimulate tourists to come. Not to penalize those who don't want to.
Otherwise, let's remember communist Romania, when we needed approvals for going "outside" and we had to submit our passports, upon returning, to the Militia station. I wonder if this period represents the model of the FPTR proposal, or North Korea, which still welcomes tourists, but makes it "a little" more "hard" for its own citizens to leave the country.
It would be more useful to have an insurance fund for plane tickets that could compensate tourists in case of cancellations or, above all, insolvency or bankruptcy of some airlines. Or to continue to have the holiday vouchers in the established formula, for which ANAT and the travel agencies campaigned so much, receiving appropriate "thanks" from the colleagues at FPTR. Finally, I remind you that travel agencies have 19% VAT on commission, and hotels and restaurants have 9% currently. We did not ask that they, the hoteliers, increase their VAT. Private firms do not propose tax increases.