The controversial Italian “holiday bonus” to support the tourism sector can be used until 30 June 2021 and no longer until the end of December this year. The deadline of 31/12/2020 to request it remains unchanged. The government has allocated €1.7B for an initiative that has seen a total sum of just under 700 million booked (data as of 23 September, source: AdnKronos). If about 200 million were spent in August, the hope is that with the extension of the window of use, tourists will use to a tool that, despite the usual bureaucratic steps, can prove to be a concrete help for accommodation facilities. According to ENIT, until the end of August the holiday bonus would have been requested by 23% of vacationers, but 14% would not have spent it yet.
The acceptance of the bonus at outdoor accommodation facilities has so far been patchy, but those who have decided to use this tool have expressed satisfaction. “For us it was a very useful tool”, Franco Vitali, president of FAITA Emilia-Romagna, told Camping Business in recent weeks. “First, because it allowed a large segment of the market to go on vacation again this year, then because it was often used to extend the stay or to purchase additional services. The third advantage is that thanks to this tool this year we have not made any discounts, and this has allowed us to maintain our margins”.
In the absence of official data at national level on the acceptance of the bonus by open air accommodation facilities, it may be interesting to look at the data recorded by the “bed & breakfasts” registered on the Bed-and-breakfast.it platform: those who have decided to accept the holiday bonus saw an incredible 1.240% increase in request. At the same time, bookings from OTAs (Booking, Expedia, Airbnb), again for the structures that accepted the bonus, decreased by 20%, demonstrating that this tool has made it possible to reduce the intermediation, that involves expensive commissions, in favor of a direct contact and negotiation between accommodation facilities and travelers.
Such a high demand can be explained by the small number of B&B that accepted the bonus (788 out of 12,000 approximately) compared to the number of travelers who requested it. According to the research, for all the structures that did not accept the holiday bonus, there was however an increase of about 30% compared to the same period of 2019.
The holiday bonus is part of the initiatives envisaged by the “Relaunch Decree” (art. 176 of Legislative Decree no. 34 of 19 May 2020) and offers a contribution of up to 500 euros. The request of the bonus by families must be made by 31 December through the application IO for mobile devices. The bonus is intended for families with ISEE up to 40,000 euros. To calculate the ISEE, the Single Substitute Declaration (DSU) is required, which contains the personal data, income and assets of a family unit and is valid from the moment of presentation and until June 30, 2021. The amount of the bonus will be modulated according to the size of the family unit: 500 euros for a nucleus of 3 or more people, 300 euros for 2 people and 150 euros for individuals.
The bonus can be requested and is paid out exclusively in digital form. To obtain it, a member of the family unit must have a SPID (Public Digital Identity System) or CIE 3.0 (Electronic Identity Card) digital identity. In fact, when requesting the bonus, these credentials must be entered and then the ISEE must be provided.
The bonus amount can be used by only one member of the family unit, even other than the person who requested it, and must be spent in a single solution, at a single tourist accommodation facility in Italy (hotel, campsite, tourist village, farmhouse and bed & breakfast) and can be used to the extent of 80%, in the form of an immediate discount, for the payment of the services provided by the hotelier. The remaining 20% can be discharged as a tax deduction, at the time of the tax declaration, by the member of the family unit to whom the document of expenditure for the stay is made out (invoice, commercial document, receipt).
Until the time of redeeming the holiday bonus, the accommodation facility must not do anything, except of course to let its customers know that they are joining the initiative. The discount applied to the guest in possession of the digital voucher will be reimbursed in the form of a tax credit that can be used as compensation, without amount limits, using the F24 form. Alternatively, it is possible to transfer it to credit institutions. With resolution no. 33 of 25 June 2020, the related tax code (6915) was established to be indicated in the F24 form to take advantage of the credit.
The Caravan Salon closed with 107,000 visitors: a result considered very positive by the organizers