Over the past years, several European countries have launched publicly funded culture vouchers to introduce teenagers and young adults to their countries’ unique and rich cultural scenes, while also supporting cultural and creative industries in the process.

These culture vouchers come in the shape of physical or digital cards as well as mobile phone apps and are granted to 15-to-18-year-olds with a fixed amount of money to be spent exclusively on cultural goods and activities for a limited duration of time.

As part of RISE Bookselling—a project run by the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF)—we are behind the recently published RISE paper analyzing these helpful measures for the book sector and young people alike, looking into the different models that currently exist in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany.

Italy

The first country to introduce such a measure was Italy back in 2016 with the 18App/Bonus Cultura, granting people turning 18 years old €500 to spend on a wide range of cultural goods and activities. The voucher has been welcomed by booksellers, with many of them claiming to have experienced a larger influx of young people into their stores. The figures also support these claims, showing that 47% of the total spending through the voucher between 2016 and 2019 (€525 million out of €1,110 million), was used on books. Unfortunately, changes to the voucher are expected in Italy for 2024 with the introduction of the new Carta del Merito and Carta Cultura, due to a change in political leadership and budget cuts. As a result, vouchers are expected only to be granted on the basis of income and merit. Still, the Italian book sector is hopeful that books and booksellers will continue to benefit from the voucher in its new shape.

France

Meanwhile, in 2021, the French government launched the Pass Culture, a culture voucher available to all 15- to 18-year-olds, with an increasing amount from €20 up to a lump sum of €300 at 18, to be spent on cultural events, goods, and practical courses, all accessible via a dedicated mobile app. The app employs geo-localization to show cultural actors subscribed to the scheme in the surrounding area, allowing teenagers to discover the cultural wealth offered in their proximity. It does not allow for home delivery of products ordered on the app, making it a requirement to collect the purchased goods at physical venues such as bookshops. According to figures obtained by the French Booksellers Association (Syndicat de la librairie française, SLF), the app not only creates new readers, but also makes already vested readers diversify their repertoire and explore new genres.

Spain

More recently, in summer 2022, the Spanish Ministry for Culture announced the Bono Cultural Joven, a culture voucher of €400 for each person in Spain turning 18 to purchase cultural goods and enjoy cultural activities. The voucher is available in either physical format, as a prepaid card, or digitally, stored in the mobile phone as a digital card. The voucher has to be spent across three different categories: live arts, cultural heritage, and audiovisual arts; cultural products in physical format, such as books; and digital or online consumption of cultural content.

The Spanish Booksellers Association (CEGAL) welcomed this initiative and, despite some initial issues, is very positive regarding its benefits and impact. As of March 2023, less than a year after its launch, a total of 730,000 transactions worth €27 million had been registered in cultural sector establishments. The sale of physical cultural goods, including books, accounted for a positive 31.3%. The Bono Cultural Joven has been renewed for 2023, which has been well received by the Spanish bookselling sector.

Germany

The most recent culture voucher comes from Germany, with its KulturPass. Launched in June this year, the plan was heavily inspired by the French Pass Culture and set up to provide the German cultural sector with additional financial relief following two years of difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan provides young people who turn 18 in 2023 with €200 to spend on cultural goods and activities via an app on their mobile phone. As with the French voucher, cultural goods and experiences can be viewed and booked online, but need to be purchased, collected, or experienced in person.

What is also noteworthy under the German plan is that registration for the KulturPass is restricted to local cultural suppliers only, meaning large online platforms and streaming services such as Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix are explicitly excluded from the initiative. While it’s too soon to know the real impact on the book sector, early reports are looking good, as figures estimate that books are the most popular items purchased with the culture voucher, with more than 95,000 books having been bought, representing a positive 48.7% of total purchases.

While each national context is different and no voucher is the same, they have all had a clear positive impact on their respective book markets so far, not only in terms of book sales and the growing presence of young people in bookshops, but also as useful tools to encourage reading and motivate the future generation to diversify their cultural practices.

Furthermore, this trend has inspired other European countries such as Ireland and Portugal to request the inclusion of a culture voucher in upcoming budget plans.

To learn more about culture vouchers, take a look at the full report on the RISE Bookselling website and don’t forget to follow RISE Bookselling to stay up to date with new research papers covering priority topics for the book sector.

Daniel Martin Brennan is policy advisor and Tora Åsling is policy officer at EIBF.