Thessaloniki gets ready for its metro launch in November
The underground rapid transit lines have been under construction for almost two decades due to various project delays
Incentives by hotels and restaurants and government stimuli are meant to improve the sector’s outlook
Europe’s tourism sector finds itself in a bind in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and amidst the gradual reopening of many countries. On the one hand, the 2020 summer season has been completely transformed – no longer are citizens as enticed by offers of large parties and events, instead, they pay far more attention to the handling of COVID-19 in different countries and to the measures introduced to protect the health and lives of travellers and locals.
Meanwhile, tourism-related businesses and their respective governments have had to begin working hand-in-hand in order to breathe new life into the struggling industry through adopting different policies and approaches meant to either alleviate the financial burden experienced by many enterprises or to make their respective venues more attractive to holiday-goers.
Earlier this week, in Cyprus, the country’s government announced that it will be reducing the VAT tax from 9% to 5% on hotels, restaurants and taxis across the country. The main goal of this policy is to give tourism and travel-related businesses some breathing space and to boost their revenues – thereby also boosting employment and providing a substantial contribution to the Cypriot budget.
The tax cut, however, will not result in a net benefit for customers – as one might normally expect. Instead, hotels and restaurants are looking to other ways, ones not involving a drastic reduction in overall revenue, that would incentivize their potential customers to pay them a visit. Such ideas include cheaper room upgrades in many hotels or better packages and offers, meant to make travelling more enticing.
By working together – on their own ends, governments and private businesses across Europe are, for the most part, successfully managing to, at least partially, bring life back to their economies and venues. Such actions, as the one in Cyprus, are bound to pay off in the long term through a general reinvigoration of entire countries.
The underground rapid transit lines have been under construction for almost two decades due to various project delays
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The underground rapid transit lines have been under construction for almost two decades due to various project delays
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