East China’s Jiangsu province will support its cultural and tourism industries by providing lump-sum subsidies and low-interest loans, and refunding cash deposits to travel agencies, to ease the impact of coronavirus outbreak, local authorities said Thursday.
Jiangsu has refunded 80% of the cash deposits totaling 270 million yuan to 1206 travel agencies.
A total of 700 million yuan of cash deposit will be refunded to 2930 travel agencies before March 5.
Jiangsu has taken the lead in the country to earmark 100 million yuan from the provincial-level special funds for cultural and tourism development as relief funds. The Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism will award 450 travel agencies with a bonus of 50.5 million yuan, which will more effectively alleviate the operating difficulties and cash flow pressure of travel agencies.
The ongoing novel coronavirus pneumonia has severely hurt the nation's tourism industry, with the China Tourism Academy estimating that the domestic market will plunge in 2020.
Domestic visits will fall by 932 million during the year, a decrease of 15.5 percent compared with 2019.
The situation will be worst in the first quarter as domestic visits will drop by 56 percent year-on-year. Revenue in the sector will fall by 1.18 trillion yuan.
Thankfully, both the central and local governments are helping travel agencies by launching a series of preferential policies.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism released a notice on Feb 5, refunding 80 percent of travel agencies' security deposits with the government, which they will be required to pay back within two years.
Also, preferential policies were announced in cities and provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Shandong to help the companies stabilize hiring and reduce taxation pressure with greater financial support.
(Source:ourjiangsu.com)
