Friday, March 29

The Government closes the door to the great perte that tourism asks for and defends its own plan


The large tourism companies have taken advantage of the days leading up to Fitur, the sector fair that opens this Wednesday in Madrid, to insistently demand from the Government a greater injection of european funds of the one proposed, with the aim of promote modernization and transformation of the sector most affected by the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic.

From Exceltur, the lobby that brings together the large groups in the sector, such as Meliá, Iberia, Globalia, NH Hotels, Riu or Amadeus, they have insisted on demanding the implementation of a PERTE (strategic project for economic recovery and transformation) specific to the sector to concentrate the injection of European funds, similar to those designed by the Government for the electric vehicle or for the new renewables and green hydrogen. A claim that has received the support of the president of the Popular Party, Pablo Casado, or the president of CEOE, Antonio Garamendi.

The plan proposed by Exceltur involves concentrating European funds amounting to 17,500 million euros in ten years in tourism (15,000 million perte in the first three years and another 2,500 million traditional European funds in the following years) to modernize the old tourist destinations of ‘sun and beach‘ Spanish people. The association calculates that these more than 17,000 million of public funds would allow, in addition, to mobilize another 37,500 million more of private investments

The Government closes the door to the request of the tourism giants and defends the ambition and transformative capacity of its own plan for the sector, with an allocation much lower than that claimed by the companies (3,400 million euros) and that does not focus on mature destinations, but rather seeks, among other aspects , send these funds to hundreds of municipalities throughout Spain to improve their tourism product.

“A real LOSS”

“Spain is already deploying a very ambitious plan & rdquor ;, said the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Kings Maroto, in a meeting with the press at the opening of Fitur. This is the so-called Plan for the Modernization and Transformation of the Tourism Sector, with those 3,400 million consigned and which will be distributed over the next three years for the repositioning of destinations, the improvement of the product and the modernization of the companies in the sector. “We are deploying what for us is a real part & rdquor ;, Maroto has settled in an interview with RNE.

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“We have coordinated the Modernization Plan with social agents, with the Spanish Tourism Council & rdquor ;, Maroto has underlined, highlighting that the dialogue of the Executive through an advisory body with CEOE, Chambers of Commerce or unions. “Exceltur is one more interlocutor, but it is not the only one. The dialogue is with all the actors, with the sector as a whole & rdquor ;, has settled on the proposals of the association of the large companies in the sector. “The Modernization Plan, with this investment of more than 3,400 million, represents a winning bet. It is what Spain was demanding from us, to invest.”

From the tourism industry it is considered that the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) and its 70,000 million euros of European funds in the coming years are a historic opportunity And the sector -which concentrated more than 12% of GDP before the pandemic- aspires to a greater role for tourism in the distribution of these funds, since that those 3,400 million assigned by the Government represent less than 5% of the total.



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