UNIZO reports that municipal gift-voucher programmes in Belgian Limburg sold about EUR4.82 million of value in 2025, with schemes operating in 34 of the province’s 38 municipalities. The business association published the findings September 29 after questioning local governments. [S01]
The reported sales total combines exact amounts and estimates supplied by municipalities. It measures voucher value sold, rather than money already redeemed by recipients, additional consumer spending caused by the schemes or a 2026 sales result. [S01]
Broad acceptance, with different delivery formats
The programmes report 3,915 participating local businesses. The study concerns the Belgian province, rather than Dutch Limburg or the whole Belgian gift-card market. [S01]
Among the 34 municipalities with a programme, 25 offer both paper and digital vouchers, seven remain paper-only and two offer only a digital format. Online purchasing is available in 27 municipalities. Those are availability measures, not the proportion of customers buying online. [S01]
Most Limburg municipal schemes offer both formats
Format availability in the 34 Belgian Limburg municipalities with a gift-voucher programme in UNIZO’s September 2026 publication.
municipalities
Tap or hover for details. All values are also available in the data table.
Source
The categories total 34 municipalities. These are programme-format counts, not sales shares, consumer preferences or redemption volumes. Survey fieldwork dates and question-level response rates were not disclosed.
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| Category | municipalities |
|---|---|
| Paper and digital | 25 municipalities |
| Paper only | 7 municipalities |
| Digital only | 2 municipalities |
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| Programme feature | Municipalities, out of 34 |
|---|---|
| Both paper and digital | 25 |
| Paper only | 7 |
| Digital only | 2 |
| Online purchase available | 27 |
| Municipality pays all management costs | 30 |
Thirty of the 34 municipalities cover all management costs, leaving participating businesses without those charges. Four report merchant charges through annual contributions or transaction fees. The survey describes several technical providers alongside systems run in-house, showing that a shared local-voucher purpose does not imply a single operating model. [S01]
Sales potential is different from measured impact
UNIZO argues that municipal vouchers direct purchasing power toward local businesses. Its report explicitly acknowledges that this need not all be new consumption. Without a comparison of spending that would have happened anyway, the sold-value total does not establish an equivalent increase in retail revenue. [S01]
The separate Arabon/Whyzzle commentary reports that online purchases accounted for 15% of vouchers on its platform in 2023 and 42% in 2025. That comparison describes a change in one supplier’s channel mix. It does not measure online sales across the province or show how much spending the vouchers added. [S01]
One supplier reports a shift toward online purchases
Arabon/Whyzzle’s reported online share of vouchers purchased on its platform, using the two completed years identified in its commentary.
% of platform voucher purchases
Tap or hover for details. All values are also available in the data table.
Source
Provider-reported observations reproduced by UNIZO, separate from the municipal survey. The source describes 2023 as two years before 2025. Transaction counts, stable-customer-panel details and an independent audit are not supplied. The incomplete 2026 figure is omitted; this is neither province-wide market share nor a causal measure of additional spending.
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| Category | % of platform voucher purchases |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 15 % of platform voucher purchases |
| 2025 | 42 % of platform voucher purchases |
The publication also includes separate commentary and transaction observations from supplier Arabon/Whyzzle. Its online-purchase and growth figures describe that platform’s activity; they cannot be applied to all 34 municipal schemes or used as a market-wide growth rate. [S01]
The published material does not specify fieldwork dates, question-by-question response rates or an independent audit of the municipal figures. It also excludes the separate provincial Visit Limburg voucher from the municipal sales total. These boundaries matter when comparing the findings with another region or a provider’s transaction data. [S01]
Photograph: Grote Markt in Hasselt, Belgian Limburg, August 26, 2024. Bent Van Aeken / Wikimedia Commons, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Archival local-retail context, resized and cropped. The photograph, adaptations and derived social image retain the same licence. Pictured businesses are not identified as survey respondents or confirmed card participants.
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Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed covers industry acquisitions, investment and market research for Gift Card News.