ZAGREB, 26 March, 2021 - The Voice of Entrepreneurs association warned on Friday of the difficult position of travel agencies in a year of the pandemic, during which they had lost over 90% of revenue, adding that the government had done nothing to help them.
"The media say that travel agencies have received billions of kuna in aid from the state, which is simply not true. Also, (Education) Minister Fuchs and (Tourism) Minister Brnjac are asking travel agencies to find the money to return vouchers given to passengers, and a new law is being mentioned, under which the agency is obliged to give its clients a refund within 15 days. However, it isn't said that travel agencies have on average lost over 90% of revenue over the past year," the association said in a press release.
It added that the owners of travel agencies could not get loans to refund their clients, that they were forced to sell their own real estate to cover the expenses and that they had not received a single penny of help from the state or any other institution.
The only aid they received is HRK 4,000 monthly grant for workers, but for every employee, the employer has to cover the additional cost of transport and other fixed costs, for which no solution has been found to date, the association said.
It said that fixed costs had not been covered either, and since they were closed, agencies could not cover all the costs.
Travel agencies "were not closed by the decision of the national civil protection team, but their operation is completely restricted by government measures," the association stressed.
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