Less than a month ago, one of the main representatives of the hotel industry in the city of Alicante announced that it is the Costa Blanca this summer, with credit earned since starting a successful adventure in a restaurant in front of Diputación. gate perfect storm. Foreign tourists were back after two years of closed and restrictions, there was nighttime activity seven days a week and everything pointed to the fact that the Spaniards will be staying in Spain this summer. The San Juan Bonfires have arrived, Alicante’s big festivals and confirmation of their predecessors. The best parties in history.
In addition. That Sunday marks a month since that night. Cream Everything seems to have gone to waste, and shadows are returning even though they don’t fit on the beaches, as this writer had to eat almost standing up at a terrace table at a restaurant on Calle Bazán in Alicante (June 24). In the absence of a pin and August, hotels and tourist apartments are operating with average occupancy rates of 65%/70% this July and peaks of 100% on weekends, and taxis are hard to find in many tourist municipalities. And without delving into what might happen to us if the war in Ukraine continues or if we close our hotels to Imerso from October. The following questions come to my mind: Are we worse than July before the pandemic? Could anxiety get us after two years of destruction? What do we bet when inflation is over 10%? Have we forgotten where our tourists come from?
Our tourism model is what it is and almost 50 years later, It’s not hard to resign, but the question is, why should it be done if everything worked like a Swiss clock until covid decided to travel or Putin thought about invading Ukraine? And it starts again with greater force than expected.
It is true that the Costa Blanca and the reality of Europe are not what they used to be. industry pioneers It’s the early 70s of the 20th century, but these precursors also evolved, but often you want to throw a decadent aroma on them. Then, guided by manna from fresh money from England to build a hotel in Spain where there was no bank loan, the nascent rural tourism industry was taken away by tour operators in exchange for thousands of financing. and thousands of seats, provided they are reserved for their customers.
British workers claiming summer space in Europe cheap and close to home thanks to charter flights. It started like this, and it continues like this 50 years later. A model that started with English but was later adapted to other markets in northern and central Europe, as well as Spanish or Portuguese. True, it’s a building that needs a lot of tourists to pay. Accounts emerged then and continue to emerge, as evidenced by the fact that the provincial tourism industry has sustained it, after this pandemic, which has put everything on hold for now. Represents 300,000 jobs per year and 15% of GDP.
Three out of four foreign tourists come from the industrial areas of Liverpool or Manchester, among other cities, on medium/low salaries and on excursions organized by wholesalers – the big chains also release this ballast – as companies aim to do so. as many boxes as possible. And there was an error.
Since the outbreak of the covid pandemic in March 2020, Costa Blanca has lost 80% of UK tourists compared to the last major year, historic 2019, and although they returned, they did not do so in 2018. amounts of previous years. Another issue is that the occupation did not suffer because this summer we Spaniards mostly Spain.
The economic crisis caused by the health crisis has caused the tourism sector to accumulate losses of close to 10,000m euros on the Costa Blanca, which represents the disappearance of 70% of activity, so it’s logical for many businessmen to even consider it after some very optimistic thought. spring, summer would be gorgeous, but as the sensitivity was on the surface, these three weeks of July once again took most of the nerves and to be honest it wasn’t very well understood when early January was after Fitur. The general agreement is that there will be no r.Full recovery by 2024.
Of course nobody thought of that. Vladimir Putin It invaded Ukraine and brought the world to the brink of a Third World War that began to look alike economically and plunged us into an alarming autumn and winter, and the consequences of the crisis energy, not because we would be back in the trenches, but with no one, even no one. John Biden I was ready.
And if the world is complex and safety is an important component for tourism – in Costa Blanca I’d add that to the price because the model is what it is – in the Community of Valencia we insist on being in touch with the world. tourist tax. A tourist from Manchester or Burgos isn’t going to stop coming to a hotel in Benidorm, right? Does it make sense to penalize the tourism industry with a new tax when the hotel operator is one of the most regulated in the Community?
Judging from the fact that the profile of tourists staying in a hotel in Barcelona, Prague, Madrid or Paris is not the same as that of choosing the Costa Blanca, a region where the euro is fighting to the last penny, for example, he pointed his finger to explain that the industry finances tourism. It’s heartbreaking to listen to the approach of public officials who don’t even move. attached for ten years with frozen prices. Regulated hotels and apartments that receive visits from on-duty inspectors to inspect their facilities down to the millimeter are on multi-million dollar rental platforms that escape all sorts of control when they have to fight day-to-day pressure from tour operators or see how a neighbor’s apartment has been made tourist-friendly. They prefer intrusiveness in the industry and then whip it up against regulated hotels and apartments. And watch out for small prints. Enforcement of the rate will be voluntary… in half, since a department is autonomous, yes or yes, at least if the composition of Botany continues as it has after the 2023 elections, it will be imposed.
It will be better for them to fight in the parliament so that it ceases to be tourism. Cinderella So that the budgets that try to apply collection rates in a sector that looks at the last grain of rice in the buffet will be calculated. The Eye, I insist, is an activity that represents 15% of GDP in Costa Blanca and provides 300,000 jobs per year, between permanent and temporary. Does it deserve less political attention than anyone else? Of course not, let’s replace the chip.
Note: Travelers who choose Spain as a tourist destination almost 30% of your total budget, according to the financial app Revolut, which allows foreigners to spend 16% more at restaurants in Spain than Spaniards traveling abroad. With all of us, it’s not that bad. How do you not get tired of repeating? José Maria Caballe The main hotel businessman in the Valencian Community has run out of time to gauge the season’s success due to “overbooking” and double shifts.