Letting Imserso tourism die is, as always, an understatement to our elders.

Santos, a friend of my father’s, left us 20 years ago, next month. Don’t ask how, but suddenly the voice of Santos, a man in his eighties, took me back to the Bilbao of my adolescence and especially to the door of the old Trueba cinema where my father had a chat with him. One Friday afternoon in the late ’70s, before he went with me to a movie I can’t remember the name of.

Santos Merino? Of course I remember, I missed it. The man was touched, he told me what a good journalist and good person he is. Joaquin Benedict. In fact, there was a moment when my throat got stuck and after those mixed feelings, 45 years later, I asked him what he wanted from me.

And here I go. This 80-year-old man, who is faithful to his appointment at a small hotel in Benidorm’s old town every spring and will arrive soon, as he always does, received a news on his cell phone that we published in the newspaper. Newspaper Imserso about the uncertain future of tourism. He looked at the autograph, read Benito, and automatically remembered that Joaquín’s eldest son had settled in Alicante. And almost a lifetime after this appointment in Bilbao, Santos and its signer started talking about Imserso tourism today, due to the rising costs and the inability of the Ministry of Social Affairs to solve the problem.

It’s a problem that requires immediate attention. Because it is no longer a question of our thousands of elderly people, many of whom have miserable pensions, the people to whom we owe everything, ten days in the sun on a good beach, rather the economies of thousands of families in the state are not in danger. livelihood directly depends on it. Of course, no one gets rich by giving lodgings to grandparents who come to the Costa Blanca in the winter, of course, but remember that many small and family hotels can keep their doors open during the low season and keep their staff active so they can enjoy walking and the beach in the middle of winter. Without them, it would be even more profitable to wait for the summer with the workers at home.

It is true that the program was born badly from the start due to the low prices that pollute the rates in general, but the current situation is already unsustainable. With production costs increasing by more than 25%, there is no company, be it a hotel, transportation or auxiliary company, that can maintain the rates of previous years, and this time the threat is serious. If there is no radical change, next winter Imserso tourism may have passed for the better life, and with it thousands of jobs, from the hotel receptionist to the baker who serves it, will perish.

The difference between the 24 euros that hotels charge for each client they host this year and the reality is stark as uncontrolled inflation means that each place is no less than 34 euros (full board). This year, with the season being reduced to five months and not all places are filled, the overall economic volume of the tourism sector has increased from 60m euros to about 45m (less than that which replaced San Isidro’s last week), as there are hotels that do not open. Of the 800,000 in all of Spain, 200,000 of the Costa Blanca had left. Employers warn that either the government will react or, as this year, many hotels will choose to close for the winter.

The government contracted hoteliers to pay 24 euros, but according to an economic report from the employers’ association, the production operating cost alone to produce an overnight stay in Imserso cost 27 euros in December 2020, rising IBI, mortgages, rents, loans, etc. up to 33 Euros, taking into account the costs… do the math yourself.

One hundred million euros lost, 5,000 workers lost in ERTE, 250,000 tourists lost, 65 hotels closed and a fatal blow to the image of the Costa Blanca tourism sector across Europe was the balance of the cancellation of the 2020-2021 program due to the pandemic. . Imserso has operated in Benidorm, Calp, Dénia, l’Alfàs del Pi, Gandía, Guardamar, Xàbia, Peñíscola, Vinaroz Alicante and Torrevieja. This year the figure has been reduced to around 30 organizations.

The relationship between hoteliers and Imserso has always swung like a pendulum from love to hate. They both know they need each other to survive. The Costa Blanca, and Benidorm in particular, are clear on this, as retirees represent an unfailing market to get off the seasonality in low season. But the low prices the program has inflicted on hotels for years have caused employers to rightly describe being forced to work in these conditions as “humiliation.”

Unlike with the water, Consell has reacted this time, but finds herself slamming the door, so far again in Madrid, which has not responded to either the Generalitat or the hotel management. It’s funny how a ministry christened Social Affairs could look otherwise. Neither our elders nor the tourism industry deserve this, and ERTEs cannot be an eternal solution. People want to work, not subsidized living.

Postscript: José Maria Caballe The head of Servigroup, the first hotel chain in the Valencian Community, has been critical of the Imserso program since it started, always arguing that it won’t go anywhere at precisely these prices. Not now, not 30 years ago. Today reality proved him right.