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benidorm can no longer be destiny inserted after 40 years. «What happens, that the Spanish is a pariah? The Government pays 22 euros for each elderly while giving 60 euros per immigrant per day or 40 euros for each Ukrainian refugee. The comparison sums up the discomfort of the hoteliers, through the mouth of the president of Hosbec, Tony Majorwhich directly blames Minister Ione Belarra for the probable «disappearance» of the tourism program for the elderly.
The sector is now attentive to see if the majority partner of the central government, the PSOE, redirects the mess that has caused Can. The last hour is that a socialist minister has already said that “we must pay attention to the sector” and negotiate “a fair price” for these vacation subsidies.
With Benidorm, they are at stake 20% of all places in Spain.
Also from the Valencian generalitat -also governed by the PSOE- have shown their disagreement with the position of Podemos and are going to create a commission to raise that amount of aid and “put rationality”, according to Mayor.
“Remove so much useless”
«If they want to end the program, let them say so, what cannot be done is make it impossible, it is a injusticean arrogance, a continuous ignoring and a contempt for the industrythe Government has to remove so many useless in Social Services », the president of the hoteliers abounds.
With the rate freeze planned by
Ione Belarra“This year we are in hell and next year, in purgatory, even lower,” he lamented, a few days after requesting his resignation.
As economic arguments, Mayor stresses that the labor agreement they have just signed raise wages by 4.5% that at the end of the year it will surely be 5.5%, in addition to the fact that for each euro that the State invests in Imserso, it later collects 1.7 euros, according to studies by several specialized audits. This tourist flow generates VAT, personal income tax and “the happiness of the people is maintained, putting a pittance, about 30 million euros.”
For this reason, he urges Pedro Sanchez for a minister from his party to recover this “so social” program for the elderly and that allows hotels to be kept open in the low season.
Risk of 30,000 unemployed
The global repercussion with all operators, not only accommodation, but also buses, tour operators…, puts even 30,000 jobs. “Our claim is to reach the cost price, it is the height of prudence, between 30 or 33 euros perhaps,” quantifies the hotel spokesman.
A surprising rate if you take into account that the client is offered his room, buffet in the morning, meals at noon and at night in full board with water and wine, wi-fi and other services for which the rest of the tourists Non-imserso beneficiaries pay much more.
“The Government should be brave and tell Podemos: we have come this far, this program cannot be killed,” says Mayor, who denies any partisan tendency, because the struggle of Benidorm hoteliers with this issue goes back a long way, although now it has entered a dead end for runaway inflation. “It hasn’t just happened to us because of Podemos, we were also fighting with the Rajoy government, and we told him to send a minister to a hotel to see the services we offer for that price,” she recalls.
www.abc.es
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism