MADRID—Spanish hoteliers have issued to politicians a wish list of requests which say need to be granted to help the hospitality industry through its current doldrums and ensure a healthier, long-term future for the sector.
“The hospitality sector, both hotels and restaurants, includes 370,000 enterprises and 1.4 million employees and the politicians need to understand they must take decisions which aid businesses in the current economic context and foment employment,” said Joan Molas, the president of the Spanish Federation of Hotels and Tourism Accommodations (CEHAT) at a news conference.
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Joan Molas |
Molas said he was sending the wish list to candidates running for Spain’s 54 seats in the European Parliament in elections to be held 7 June, as well as to national politicians. One of the hoteliers’ main demands is that the government not increase the current 7-percent value added tax charged guests on hotel rooms. Molas applauded the decision by the French government to lower the 19-percent valued-added tax on hotel bills to 5 percent.
The hoteliers and other hospitality sector players also want the government to cut the fees Spanish airports charge airlines, the cost of which is passed on to passengers. Spain has the highest airport taxes in the European Union.
“Both these measures directly affect tourists in their pocketbooks,” Molas noted.
On a pan-European level, the CEHAT president asked that Spain’s European representatives take a direct role in the drafting of an expected law aimed at harmonizing the EU’s hotel classification system for simplification.
“We want the Euro-parliamentarians to study all the alternatives and avoid a system which is so complicated that hotel guests won’t be able to understand it,” he said.
CEHAT members also are asking the legislators to regulate the plethora of guest opinion pages on travel websites “to avoid bad practices which hotel and restaurant owners cannot defend themselves against.”
In addition, the hospitality industry is seeking more flexibility in granting temporary work contracts due to the sector’s seasonal nature as well as better coordination in European policy regarding immigrants who make up a large share of hotel and restaurant employees.
Spanish hoteliers also want to see a crackdown on the mounting problem of illegal vacation rentals. Since the country’s property market crashed more than a year ago, many people are renting out to foreigners their second homes in beach or mountain resorts which they cannot sell because of the flat housing market.
“We’re helpless in this regard and there are lots of Web sites out there advertising these rentals,” Molas said. “Some regions have laws against the practice but many, including the popular Mediterranean destinations on Spain’s east coast and the Balearic Islands, do not.”
“We want the politicians, both here in Spain and our representatives in Brussels, to defend the interests of the Spanish hospitality industry which is so important to this country,” he argued.
Spain is consistently ranked by the World Tourism Organization as the second most popular global tourism destination after France but, as everywhere else, the economic crisis is hitting hard.
The government Institute of Tourism Studies says that the number of foreign visitors to Spain was down 16.3 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2008 and hotel overnight stays fell 14.5 percent in the first three months of 2009, according to the industry group Exceltur.
Spanish hotel operators are reacting with deep discounts. Sol Meliá, the country’s largest hotel chain, is offering room rates in May, June and July from 20 euros (US$27) per person, per night, while the Barceló group is cutting rates by 20 percent with children staying free.