Eurofound's EU PolicyWatch collates information on the responses of government and social partners to the COVID-19 crisis, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, as well as gathering examples of company practices aimed at mitigating the social and economic impacts.
Factsheet for measure NL-2020-11/2091 – measures in Netherlands
Country | Netherlands , applies nationwide |
Time period | Temporary, 12 March 2020 – 31 December 2020 |
Context | COVID-19 |
Type | Other initiatives or policies |
Category |
Supporting businesses to stay afloat
– Access to finance |
Author | Thomas de Winter (Panteia) and Eurofound |
Measure added | 02 December 2021 (updated 08 June 2022) |
Due to the COVID-19 restrictions on travel options, the travel industry resorted to providing travellers with booked tickets a voucher for any issues surrounding their travel package. This measure specifically targets travel package agencies that provide holiday packages to consumers. Regular travel agencies selling single tickets or accommodation are not included in this measure as the government provides other forms of assistance that this group does not get. Furthermore, this measure is an additional measure as travel package agencies can also make use of other COVID-19 recovery and support schemes adopted by the government such as the SME credit guarantee scheme (BMKB) or the Expanding business loan guarantee scheme (GO-C) .
This measure provides liquidity loans (voucher credits) to travel organizations through the Stichting Garantiefonds Reisgelden (Travel Guarantee Fund, SGR) organisation. This makes it possible for a travel agency that is temporarily in-need of finances to lend funds to return the amount of a voucher with an SGR guarantee for a package holiday to the consumer. The travel agency is subject to repayment of the credit to the SGR organisation. In this case, the travel agency can securely bridge a time of financial difficulties, while also providing the consumer the opportunity to receive their money back through a voucher.
To be eligible for the voucher credit program, a travel company must satisfy the following requirements:
The government has made a €400 million Voucher Fund accessible to guarantee fund SGR. On 30 March 2021, the European Commission in Brussels formally authorized the Voucher Fund. A travel agency can loan up to €50 million, or 80% of the number of outstanding vouchers. This loan may only be used to reimburse customers' travel vouchers.
It is estimated that around 300 travel agencies have registered for the Voucher Fund based on a publication by the Chamber of Commerce, however, it is currently unclear as there is no official evaluation report available.
Workers | Businesses | Citizens |
---|---|---|
Does not apply to workers |
Sector specific set of companies
|
Does not apply to citizens |
Actors | Funding |
---|---|
National government
Other social actors (e.g. NGOs) |
National funds
|
Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:
Trade unions | Employers' organisations | |
---|---|---|
Role | Unknown | Unknown |
Form | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:
Unknown.
Unknown.
This case is sector-specific (only private sector)
Economic area | Sector (NACE level 2) |
---|---|
H - Transportation And Storage | H52 Warehousing and support activities for transportation |
This case is not occupation-specific.
Citation
Eurofound (2021), Voucher credit scheme for the tourism and vacation industry, measure NL-2020-11/2091 (measures in Netherlands), EU PolicyWatch, Dublin, https://static.eurofound.europa.eu/covid19db/cases/NL-2020-11_2091.html
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