Italian travel agents’ plan after the new government is formed

Concertation, consultation, clear and equal rules for all, and streamlined administration. These are the key concepts that inspired a real manifesto written by the leaders of Fiavet Lazio, (the Italian Federation of Travel Agents of the Lazio district). Fiavet Lazio addressed to the government that will be installed after the elections on March 4 to give a voice to the requests of the travel agency sector.

In a meeting in Rome, the President of the Regional Federation, Ernesto Mazzi, accompanied by Councilors Ezio Biagioli and Paolo Tsimbirlis, posed topical issues ranging from decorum and traffic in the capital to the new regional law, “which should be rewritten by sharing it with all the categories” – abusiveness with the urgency of defining who will really control this emergency, and the request for a competition for technical director of travel agencies, which for years has not been done by the region due to lack of funds.

Other priorities are youth work, with the proposal of a reduction of age limits in on-call contracts, and the tourist tax to be transformed into “tax purpose” aimed at promotion and tourism qualification.

At the national level, Fiavet Lazio calls for the establishment of a Ministry of Tourism and the reorganization of private guaranteed funds, because according to the federation, there are still many agencies that do not have this instrument.

“No one has bothered to provide common rules, neither for funds nor for insurance,” said Mazzi, “We do not even know the accident rate of our companies. If we had to rely on old statistics referring to 0.30 of insolvent or bankrupt companies, we should conclude that this is a marginal phenomenon.

“But we have no certainty. On the cases of insolvency, nobody knows the timing and procedures for compensation and other issues related to disservices and inconvenience for consumers.

“Finally, there is the question of VAT with ordinary or special regime, which has substantial differences. On this specific subject, we would like the future rulers to consider the possibility of standardizing VAT rates at [the] European level to revive our competitiveness.”

Mazzi also focused on the delocalization of human resources: “There are fewer [than a] dozen or so employees of tour operators or travel agencies that have been asked to accept a relocation in order not to lose their jobs, compared to other situations that make more news.”

Fiavet Lazio, therefore, questions politicians, hoping to open a constructive dialogue on matters of no small importance.

Last provocation: the Federation wonders if politicians are aware of the fact that some multinational companies in the tourism sector are leaving Italy to migrate to other European countries, where taxation and labor costs are lower.”