The tourist guides, rural homes and providers of particular recreational services will be able to work based on patent. The proposal is detailed in a bill drafted by the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure, IPN reports.

The informative note to the bill says some of the tourist guides avoid registering a legal form of activity owing to the difficult types of reporting and to the obligation to use the cash register. The possibility of using such a simplified form of activity as the one based on parent would contribute to legalizing the work of tourism guides and to stimulating the interest in practicing this activity.

As regards rural homes, the notion was included in the legislation in 2018. These are own homes where the owners occasionally provide accommodation for money. Being a new type of tourism service in Moldova, the rural home is seldom included in tourist offers owing to the rather difficult procedure for registering the entrepreneurial activity against the revenues that can be earned.

The bill also enumerates different cultural, sports and recreational services that are usually inserted in the package of tourism services, which do not generate large incomes, but ensure the diversity and attractiveness of the tourist offer. This refers to gastronomic workshops, artistic and sports activities as part of tourist programs that could also be provided based on patent.

Under the bill, the model of tourist contract will no longer be mandatory and this would enable the business entities to diversify the contest of the contract. Also, the conditions to get travel insurance through travel agencies and tour operators and to have a tourist voucher will be excluded.

Contacted by IPN for a comment, the prescient of the Tourism Development Association Viorel Miron said the adjustment of the legislation is welcome. The component concerning the tourism homes is a necessary element of the tourism infrastructure in Moldova. There are homes that should be integrated into the tourism circuit. If they have a traditional aspect, they should be functional.

Viorel Miron also welcomed the exclusion of the tourist voucher, which is a form of reporting each tourism transaction by the business entity. This is a file completed in several copies and is a much more bureaucratic procedure.

He said he regrets the fact that a series of proposals were ignored, such as the organization of tourism zones in Moldova so as to eliminate the obstacles to developing tourism at destination, which was formulated by the Tourism Development Association. The current tourism zones regime cannot be used. An institution should be instituted, like the Organization for Destination Management, which would administer the relations with entrepreneurs, would coordinate their activity, would cooperate with the local public authorities that manage such areas and would suggest tourist representation projects.