Germany: National Tourism Center Adds Cryptocurrency Payments For Services

The German National Tourist Board (GNTB) is now accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a form of payment for its services, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reported March 27.

“Within our strategy for digitalization we continuously look at the most recent technologies and trends and see whether they can be implemented into our company,” said Petra Hedorfer, CEO of GNTB.

The marketing organization said it was interested in testing crypto’s underlying Blockchain technology for their finance operations and might use it for international payments. As a global company, the GNTB wants to “set an example as a [driver of innovation] and leader for the tourism [industry],” Hedorfer continued.

As a national tourism board, Frankfurt-based GNTB is subject to the Federal Ministry of Economy and Energy, from which it also receives funding. GNTB aims to develop and communicate strategies and products to positively represent Germany as an attractive travel destination. For this purpose the organization operates 32 agencies abroad.

In late February 2018, the Federal Ministry of Finance declared virtual currency as acceptable tender for payments in accordance with precedent set by the European Court in 2015. Germany intends to cooperate with the EU and other countries in the formation of regulations for trading platforms and initial coin offerings (ICOs). The first detailed regulations for operators of ICOs in Germany were passed in late February by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), which has authority over the crypto space due to a current lack of specific legislation.