Satisfactory vacations are not yet accessible to everyone. There are still many people who, for various reasons, can never get away from it. That is why Visit Flanders is investing almost 1 million Euros for removing holiday barriers.
Concretely, they support 26 projects for individuals or groups who find it difficult to overcome these barriers on their own. Because everyone deserves a holiday!
The target groups for whom these subsidies are intended and the barriers they encounter can be very diverse. Think of people with a physical or mental disability, people living in loneliness and isolation, people in poverty, people suffering from dementia, people living in facilities or care homes, or newcomers to our society.
The Flemish Minister for Tourism, Zuhal Demir, is also providing four million euros through Visit Flanders to support recognized youth accommodations, care homes and youth hostels during this second COVID-19 wave. Social tourism also counted on financial support during the first wave. At that time, 12.5 million euros were released. The importance of care homes and youth hostels for young people and Flemish people in a vulnerable situation should not be underestimated and it is why it is important not to leave this sector out in the cold during this difficult period.
The functioning and efforts of social tourism make the annual vacations possible for many young people and Flemish people in vulnerable situations. The financial support is therefore intended to help the establishments to survive and thus guarantee the supply of vacations for young people and vulnerable groups.
For more information on these initiatives, you can read these two articles in dutch: Article 1 and Article 2.
