After two years of deep crisis, the hotel and tourism industry faced a 2022 that promised to be, this time, the moment of recovery after the impact of covid. The energy and price crisis, however, has painted clouds over what seemed like a promising year. José Luis Álvarez Almeida faces the present with “realism”, but not in a pessimistic way because, he explains, a hotelier is not allowed to be. The health crisis, he says, has taken its toll physically and morally. “It’s been a time of great wear and tear,” he acknowledges. His combative profile against the intermittent closures and demanding support from the institutions towards a sector that, he recalls, accounts for an important part of the GDP have also earned him fame in the sector outside the borders of the Principality. In the patron circles of tourism and hospitality, now, everyone knows him, simply, as “the Asturian”.
– How are the hospitality and tourism?
–This is a sector that comes from two years of pandemic. We were closed, which did not happen in any other sector. Now we begin to pay what we borrowed. That we got into debt because they closed us down and we couldn’t invoice, not because of bad management. Now we had to get ahead, starting to sell, seeing security and happiness in the streets… Because people want to go out and we understand that they are going to go out. But it is true that the war in Ukraine scares us and people are going to reconsider the expenses. That influences us. The energy issue is also fundamental and it is a double entry for a hotelier, it influences you at home and in the business.
–How much have costs risen for hoteliers?
–After analyzing the cost overruns among our partners, we have concluded that the increases range from 58% to 172%. The average effect of all the companies analyzed is 92%. In absolute terms, increases can be more than 1,000 euros per month in hotels. Asturian hotel establishments are experiencing an average increase of about 500 euros per month. It’s abysmal.
–And the costs of the products will have risen.
-Every day, but every day, in recent days a supplier has come to our bars telling us that he is raising prices. But it goes up 300%, 120%, 40%. And the hotelier always has a hard time passing on prices.
-Raise the bread.
-When an innkeeper raises prices it is because he can’t take it anymore. Every time the cider rises, a tremendous one is assembled. When I started out in a bar at the age of five, I remember that the rise in bread was the headline in all the media. We should all have raised prices based on analytical accounting and, for the time being, this has not been done. It hasn’t reached the client, we in business have raised all our prices.
-If raw materials and energy costs rise… will the hotel industry raise prices?
-Prices are going to go up, they’re going to go up. If we came with a lung… we could say: “Here we have to hold on”, but you don’t come with a lung, you’re drowning. We have requested a moratorium on ICO credits and not because we do not want to pay, we know that we have to pay and we are going to do it, but we are in a sector that comes from the UCI, that was recovering and that, now, is catching a cold again .
–Can this cold kill him?
-Many yes. When the closures due to the virus began in 2020, we warned that some businesses were going to close permanently. They accused us of being alarmists and, unfortunately, we were not wrong.
–Are you afraid that consumption will retract with inflation?
-Sure. We will be very attentive. Both the one who has money and the one who does not have it are thinking that he has to save. We think we will see it and it will be a source of analysis for the next few months.
-Is the future black?
-Not everything is cloudy. We are going to have a good summer, but this sector needs support. I don’t want to always be the pessimist, I don’t want to be the president who is always against and fighting. I hope there is a change in trend, we have many families behind.
– What do you ask the administrations?
-I miss economic policies to support the sector. We have a deputy council that is promoting and we are not going to criticize that, it is being done well. We are positioning ourselves well. But by doing this well we cannot stop helping the hotelier, the tourism entrepreneur… why aren’t there economic policies? I think that this vice-ministry, which is very new, should have more pressure capacity in the general directorates. When it came to negotiating European funds, no one sat down with us. Some funds that we are waiting for them and, in the end, they will pass and we will not know where they are.
Is this the case in other regions?
-As I am, they are in the rest of Spain. But the fact that others are ill doesn’t bother me much and it’s no consolation to me. What I want is for Asturias to be well.
– How are they in terms of employment?
–Active policies and training are needed. The employment office has to help and is responsible for managing the adaptation to jobs and something is wrong. At the national level, there is talk of bringing in a foreign contingent to fill vacancies, despite the level of unemployment we have. A dual vocational training system is needed. We have been asking for a pilot project for many years at Otea. We believe that the future should go for dual training, that the employer pay for education. We’ve said it many times.
–Have we lost the competitive advantage in tourism that we had with the safe destination mantra?
–If we had a tourist observatory we could see it. I think that Asturias is going to consolidate itself as that tourism of experiences and nature, people who are looking for different things. In the last two years, people have come who had never been before. However, we cannot go wrong. We were better than the rest in that we fell less than the others, but we did not have better figures than Valencia, for example. We, with all due respect, are four cats on the Spanish tourist map, we have to go to that gastronomic tourism and that quality tourism.
-There is potential.
-We have tourist resources that nobody has. We have a lot to teach tourists, but from the Government’s point of view, we lack support so that they see this sector as a potential for economic growth in this region. I was in the “Ovetense of the Year” to César Junco, a hotelier who is a pride, and all the speeches were going to extol tourism and gastronomy. Everyone loves us, everyone supports us, but in the end, no one helps us. 12% of GDP in Asturias is tourism, let no one forget.
– They don’t take care of you?
-The Minister of Industry, to give an example, in this legislature has not met with us even once. That we do not depend on him, but where does he support tourism? In the generation of employment, in depopulation… There are many headlines, but there is no effective policy for a hotelier, they are all problems. In the solvency funds of the Government of the Principality we believe that there were about 30 million euros left over. We don’t have the data because they don’t give it to us, but those are our calculations. That money is going to be returned to the State, that money that came to Asturias is going to be returned. Everyone talks about tourism, but when it comes to defending it, everyone slips away.
–How is Easter coming?
-We think it’s going to be good, but it’s three days. Rural tourism is very strong. It’s going to be good because we’ve done a promotion, the prices are a little higher than last year’s, we’ll see how they turn out…
– A challenge for the immediate future?
–At the Asturian level, the AVE. And I see little pressure to achieve it in 2023, it must be remembered in all public events. It is essential to seasonally adjust tourism and improve connections for congresses. At Otea we have to continue growing and gaining strength. On a particular level I want to find a replacement. Over the next three years I want to encourage Asturian businessmen to take up the baton. Although it’s wrong for me to say it, directing Otea is very demanding. The reviews here are merciless. These last two years have had a personal and human wear. I have less and less patience and I see more that the administrations do not know what associationism is. They complain that there are no valid interlocutors and, when there are, if the interlocutor tells you something you don’t like, instead of discussing and agreeing, their answer is, from the outset, a no.
–How do you now assess the demonstrations in front of the Board against the closures due to the pandemic?
-They were very hard and risky moments, because we did not know how the sector was going to respond. We show a unity of the sector, but we miss some institutions that did not support us and that I think were portrayed.
-Who are you referring to?
-The unions were not up to the circumstances. We were not defending businessmen, we were defending the sector. The same FADE, at that time my relations with the employers were not ideal. What we did have was the full support of the three Chambers of Asturias. I felt proud, above all, of the image of unity that we gave to the rest of Spain. We were the community that demanded the most, that fought the most. We made a defense of nightlife without cracks. The entire value chain thanked us.
–What did they get?
-We were the community that received the most aid, comparatively, for nightlife. The aids were few, but if we compare them with other sites they have been many. I also have to say that the Government did not rise to the occasion. They left us hanging, we lacked information. Based on that pressure and fighting and being on the street we get things and raise awareness. I have to admit that in the Principality there is a person I admire, Juan Cofiño. He always had the phone off the hook and always helped us.