Imserso wants to subsidize the trips of foreigners to Spain

The proposal was transferred by the general director of Imserso, Mayte Sanchoto entrepreneurs during the Tourism Council of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) held last Tuesday. Sancho did not offer further details of the matter beyond the proposal itself, nor did he talk about execution times, so it is not clear if the project will be present among the packages that the agency will tender in the coming months, corresponding to the program of Social Tourism, according to this newspaper Fuentes present at the meeting.

The general director of Imserso met the opposition of the hotel sector, represented by the national employer Cehat and other regional such as Hosbec (Benidorm and Community Valencian), who believe that it would be detrimental to the program of a escape of places to other countries, but also the one that is encouraged that citizens of neighboring nations can come to Spain at a lower price than the one that marks the market. For hoteliers it is a double -edged sword because they need the elderly Spaniards to be able to have open hotels in winter and keep the workforce, and that are foreign visitors who leave the economic benefit with their stay during the low season.

So in practice, the implementation of this proposal could lead to the possibility of losing squares in favor of other countries, after years being cut, and that citizens of other European states that already come during winter paying very prices very Above those of the Imserso, they seek to come subsidized, at a time when the sector is managing to dissect the tourist flows even in the sun and beach destinations, and points to reaching The 100 million foreign tourists in 2025 after attracting 94 last year.

It would not be the only opposite effect for companies. Hoteliers also fear that the internationalization of the program can affect The relationship that establishments have with the tour operatorson those who depend a good part of their sales. «There is an important risk that these foreigners who are coming at a market or higher price at the end end up being a reference and tell us, ‘hey, if you are accepting Germans or French or Portuguese at this price, the rest of my customers You have to accept them ‘. And that would mean that we could not continue working with the Imserso because the program in some cases covers us are leftover beds that we did not have occupied, ”explain sources in the sector.

The same sources remember that the same proposal to that of the department he directs Pablo Bustinduyit was already executed between 2009 and 2013, -it was implemented during the second legislature of the socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero-, under the name of senior Europe and the baton of the Ministry of Tourism (Through Segitur), “And it was a failure.” In his first season, he occupied 50,000 places out of a total of 80,000. Then he was diminishing until in his latest edition he only offered some 24,000 foranos positions during the average and low season. The program went ahead but without subsidies from the State.

On the other side, on the proposal of bring Spanish senior travelers to other European destinationsthe same informants also believe that the proposal will fall for their own weight due to the lack of reciprocity between the money requested by Spanish and foreigners. “At that price it is impossible to find places outside of Spain, it is absolutely unfeasible.”

Thermalism

For now, it is a subject in study but it is not the first time that the director of the Imserso drops this idea. Already in the last Fitur, held just a month ago, Sancho talked about internationalizing the program and taking it to neighboring countries such as France and Portugal. He said it during his participation in a debate with Miguel Mirones, president of the National Spa Association (ANBAL)in which explicitly there was talk of crossing the borders with the thermalism program. The spas, on the other hand, are open to that option because they depend mostly on the Spanish client, and are interested in attracting abroad, and say they are willing to create a working group to collaborate with the public entity, as details the own own Mirons in conversation with this newspaper.

However, the problem for the tourism sector lies in the fact that these proposals arrive while the real crucial issue is still noticeable for companies that work with the program that is none other than the profitability of continuing in it. At the same meeting held at the CEOEhotel representatives transmitted to Sancho the “urgent” need to update the program, both in their design and prices, after years of failed attempts to review the rates.

Prices pressure

Already before the pandemic the hoteliers pushed the Imserso to make a cost study that would bring rates to economic reality, and with the inflationary climbing lived in recent years, their pressure intensified, although without result. Consequently, during the last seasons, numerous accommodations have stopped working with the program, many of them even renouncing their doors open during the winter, with the blow that this supposes for employment in areas that drink exclusively of tourism.

The new tender prepared by the Imserso for the next season of the Social Tourism Program, whose design is still unknown, does not aim to be a great revolution in terms of rates, taking into account the difficulties that add the lack of new ones PGENERAL STATE STILLS. Against companies, Sancho’s skepticism also plays regarding the denounced absence of program profitability. “Something we will all win, if we would not have a program,” the director of the Elderly Institute during an interview at RNE came to say in September last year.