Two older women discuss senior travel at an agency. /
Social Rights, in view of the strong recovery in demand after the covid, will take out 820,000 tourist places between October and June that it would be willing to expand
The Ministry of Social Rights has decided to maximize the supply of Imserso subsidized trips for the elderly for the coming season. In principle, it is going to put 850,000 tourist packages for this group on sale next September, which represents a growth in trips of more than 60% compared to those of the 2021-22 season. Moreover, ministry sources indicated that in the event that the demand was greater than the initial quota, they would be willing to expand the offer.
The government objective with this strong promotion of the program is twofold. On the one hand, satisfying the enormous desire to travel of the elderly after two years of suspension of Imserso travel, first, and resumption with many limitations, later, caused in both cases by the coronavirus pandemic. On the other hand, to help the Spanish tourism and hospitality sector, heavily affected by the confinements, and to support employment in the low season months.
The numbers handled by Imserso indicate that its travel program not only comes out of the sinkhole of the pandemic but will even exceed the numbers of participants prior to the coronavirus plague. The season that ends at the end of this month, the first almost complete since 2019, has already touched normality. The very high rates of vaccination against covid among Spanish retirees and the implementation of security protocols allowed, especially since Christmas, that up to half a million older people travel with the Imserso.
regular calendar
The new travel program recovers the usual calendar. The almost four million Spaniards who meet the requirements to benefit from these subsidized tourist trips will begin this week to receive the letters announcing the places for the new season. In September the term will open for the commercialization of the trips, which will begin to take place from mid-October to June of next year.
To favor this normalization and, at the same time, lend a hand to the elderly, one of the groups most affected by the enormous rise in inflation so far this year, the Executive undertakes to keep the prices of the travel offer frozen of the Imserso of the new season. They will be identical to the current ones.
The studies of the ministry show that these trips, despite the persistence of the covid, are “extremely safe, because the guard has not been lowered with the security measures.” Any case that is detected is monitored and followed up to cut the chain of contagion. Only 0.15% of travelers have tested positive for coronavirus. Specifically, until mid-May, there were only 625 positives out of 420,000 controlled users. This means that the infection rate in these trips and coexistence is at least five times lower than that detected by the Ministry of Health and the ministries in the general Spanish population over 60 years of age.
The result of both data is a very high rate of satisfaction among retirees who have decided to resume the travel program. 80% indicated that their degree of satisfaction with leisure travel was high or very high.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.