You own or develop an online platform for travel services that can be booked by tourists, and you have at least once asked yourself one of the following questions:

Do I have to be a travel agency to own and manage such a platform?

How can I accept holiday vouchers as payment means?

In this article you will be able to understand whether you need to be licensed as a travel agency in Romania and the main legal aspects of licensing and accepting holiday vouchers as payment means for travel services.

1. Do you have to be licensed as a travel agency?

To answer this question, your business model should first be analysed:

• Do you only put tourists in contact with hosts (legally called accommodation facilities) through your platform?
• Or do you sell travel services to tourists yourself?

Mere intermediation

If the answer to the above questions is that you only put tourists in contact with hosts, then as a rule, you are not acting as an agency, but as a mere intermediary.

But what does it mean to “put tourists in contact with hosts”?

For example, hosts set up an account and post ads on your platform with the services they offer, and tourists book the service directly from the host (whether they pay through the platform or directly to the host). In this way, you create an online marketplace where hosts can promote and/or sell their services and tourists can purchase them.

In other words, as a mere intermediary you do not sell travel services to tourists, but your role is to link the hosts’ offers with the tourists’ requests. Your platform acts as a marketplace that allows sellers to offer their services to customers, doing nothing more than providing the communication channel and the environment where requests meet offers.

Classic examples of such platforms are Booking or AirBnb.

In such a case, as a rule, you do not have to register/license as a travel agency.

Travel agency

On the other hand, if you sell travel services to tourists yourself, then you are carrying out activities specific to travel agencies. In other words, when the travel services sales contract is concluded between you and the tourist, regardless of whether the services will actually be provided by your company or by another service provider, you will be acting as a travel agency.

You will also act as a travel agency when combining travel services in the form of a package - for example, you offer tourists a package consisting of accommodation, car rental and transport for the same holiday.

Therefore, when you sell travel services yourself or combine them as a package, you need to be licensed as a travel agency.

Holiday vouchers

If you want to accept holiday vouchers as means of payment for bookings made through your platform, you need to act as a travel agency, as this limitation is expressly provided for by the legal provisions. In this case, the status of travel agency is no longer considered in terms of whether you sell or combine travel services but is imposed by the mere acceptance of holiday vouchers.

Note: The legislation prohibits carrying out activities specific to travel agencies without having the appropriate authorisation and without obtaining a travel licence, and in case of a violation, fines and other specific sanctions will be applied.

2. How do you become a travel agency?

Unlike the case where you act as a mere intermediary, to become a travel agency you need to obtain a travel licence.

The travel licence is currently issued by the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Tourism and to obtain it you must meet certain conditions and submit several documents. If you intend to operate only online, you can obtain an online-only travel licence.

3. What type of tourism license is necessary?

Travel agencies can be of two types: intermediary and organizing.

Briefly, the general difference between the two would be that the organizing agency combines and sells travel packages to tourists directly or indirectly, and the intermediary agency sells or offers for sale packages combined by an organizing agency. At the same time, either of the two can also sell only components of travel packages (in their own name).

The legal definitions are, at least in some places, unclear, so if you are not sure what type of licence your business would need, get a lawyer to help you with an actual assessment of the services and functionalities you offer through the platform in relation to the legal provisions and the authorities’ practice. In this respect, the authorities seem to interpret that an agency can purchase a travel service (which does not constitute a package) from a host and then sell it to a tourist under the intermediary agency licence.

In any case, if you provide services that do not comply with the type of licence you hold, you may be sanctioned under the law.

4. Who is responsible for travel services?

As a rule, when you act as a mere intermediary, the responsibility for the travel services booked lies with the host, because the platform is not a party to the contract for travel services concluded between the tourist and the host.

In the case of travel agencies, there is a legal responsibility to provide tourists with quality and safe services. According to the law, the organizing travel agency is liable to tourists for the proper execution of the services included in the travel package.

5. Does the status of mere intermediary exclude that of travel agency?

No, the two qualities are not mutually exclusive. You can simultaneously carry out both mere intermediary services between tourists and hosts, for which you are not acting as a travel agency, and activities specific to travel agencies.

In other words, you can decide to act as an intermediary for certain travel services on the platform, and act as a travel agency for others (but you must always act as an agency for travel services that are paid for with holiday vouchers).

Operating a platform as a mere intermediary or as a travel agency can in many cases be a subtle distinction and may depend on several variables, such as the services and functionalities offered through the platform, or the payment methods accepted. You should seek legal advice from a lawyer who can check your platform and help you make an informed decision, especially as non-compliance is expressly sanctioned by law.