Conference "Polish Tourist Voucher - a lifeline for the tourism industry and support for families"

Yesterday, during a conference organized by Rzeczpospolita, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister development, work and technology Jarosław Gowin said that "Tourism, alongside culture, is one of the two sectors hardest hit by the pandemic."

At the same time, he informed that the over 160 billion złoty that the government has supported Polish companies with is a huge burden that we will all have to struggle with for many years. He added that there is currently no "budget space" for further protective shields, but "point actions must be thought out".

We hold you to your word, because support is extremely needed, especially in the area of tourism companies operating in large cities, which have so far relied on business tourism and organized groups.

"We will feel the most painful effects of the crisis in April-May," Gowin said, but next year's holidays should be better than this year's.

The theme of the conference was "Polish Tourist Voucher – kołabout lifesaving for industriesWithy tourism and support for families”. During the debate, the functioning of the Polish Tourist Voucher (PBT) was assessed, the tourist season was summed up with the role of PBT taken into account, and the prospects for using PBT in the coming months were discussed.

In the government's opinion, this was one of the most effective responses to the industry's problems.

The meeting was attended by the President of WOT, who emphasized during her speech:

"The opinion I am presenting is based on information collected from members who have introduced benefits for PBT. At the moment, the use of the voucher is small, and tour operators do not use it at all, despite the great effort put into developing new offers addressed to families with children (these are often companies that have previously worked in incoming tourism for guests from abroad, but based on the opinions of POT and MR, they have developed special packages).”

President of WOT she thanked Minister Gut Mostowy (who mentioned earlier the amendment to the PBT Act. Which was also important in the context of the statement by Deputy Prime Minister Gowin, who said that culture, next to tourism, was most affected by the effects of the coronavirus) asking for tourist attractions to be taken into account such as museums, cultural and educational institutions in the Act.

The advantages of PBT were highlighted, which include:

  1. Preparation of interesting offers by members addressed to families with children.
  2. Increased traffic on websites (city LOT) where we have created tabs informing about offers provided for a voucher. In Google searches, "voucher" is the most frequently entered phrase.
  3. Inability to use PBT for any other purpose than that specified in the Act. Unlike what happens with the 500 plus benefit.

At the same time, the following shortcomings were pointed out:

  1. Failure to include entities operating in tourism (museums and attractions)
  2. Insufficient promotion. No links from Polska.travel to offers placed in the mentioned tabs (on LOT city pages)

In the context of the reported deficiencies of this service We asked for better, permanent promotion of cities and information about PBT in the context of the developed tourism programs for schools, because the voucher is valid until March 2022.

The meeting was attended by several dozen people representing the hoteliers' community, representatives of travel agencies dealing with domestic tourism, as well as representatives of regional and local tourist organizations and tourist attractions. Together with us, the meeting was attended by a member of the WOT Program Council, who also represented the Museum of Life in the Polish People's Republic, Mr. Rafał Patla.