Travel firms have been giving vouchers to customers with bookings cancelled due to Covid, with Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf estimating at least a million have been issued.
If vouchers are not used within a year, travel companies are expected to refund customers their face value. With the first of them having been issued in March, many operators will face refunding them soon.
To avert a surge of company failures this may prompt, the Dutch government has now agreed to set up a voucher fund to repay customers in the event of insolvency. De Telegraaf reports companies would be lent a maximum of €50 million.
Frank Oostdam, chairman of The General Dutch Association of Travel Agencies (ANVR), said the fund “will prevent a large number of companies from going bankrupt because they are unable to pay out vouchers”.
