Crowded beaches, terraces where ice creams are served and the hotel industry recognizing that cities are being conquered by tourists. Is a reality. The other, which also exists, is that 37% of Valencians cannot afford to go on vacation for at least one week a year. And therefore, they stay at home.
The figure is part of the results of a survey on living conditions that asks, among other things, if you eat chicken or fish more or less frequently, if you can bear unforeseen living costs and even if you have had delays in delivery. housing payment.
A questionnaire that uses questions about day-to-day issues to trace the reality of material deprivation by autonomous community. And the responses of the Valencian Community in the INE data in 2022 show that the figures are almost like those of 2018, 36.9% and even like those of 2007, 16 years ago, when it stood at 38.1 %.
The percentage of the population in a situation of severe material and social deprivation in 2022 stood at 7.7%, compared to 8.3% the previous year. Of the seven concepts defined at the household level, the one that worsened the most in 2022 was that of not being able to afford to keep the home at an adequate temperature (17.1%, compared to 14.3%). For its part, “has had delays in the payment of expenses related to the main residence” or in “installment purchases in the last 12 months” improved to 13.2%, compared to 14.4% the previous year.
In the Valencian Community, the answer “you cannot afford to go on vacation for at least one week a year” had not been such a high percentage of the results since 2017, when it stood at 37.5%. That year had given some respite to the Valencian domestic economies according to the data, since in 2016 there were 44.9% who could not leave their habitual residence to rest at least seven days a year. In the historical series shown by the INE (collects data between 2004 and 2022) the worst year was 2012, with 54.1% of people residing in the Valencian Community assuming that their economy was not enough to stretch their pockets and enjoy nor that it was a week off a year.
Since 2016 the percentages are around 36.2%, leaving behind the 44.9% of the total of seven years ago. The current figure, however, is above the Spanish average, which is 33.5%. Where more people give up vacations out of obligation is in Andalusia, with 45.2%. It is followed by Extremadura (42.3%) and the Region of Murcia (41.9%), where there were the highest percentages of people who could not afford to go on vacation away from home for at least one week a year in 2022. The percentages The lowest corresponded to La Rioja (18.3%), the Basque Country (18.7%) and the Community of Madrid (21.3%).
In the tourism sector they are aware of how economic vicissitudes affect vacations. In the Valencian hotel association, Hosbec, they explain that there are numerous hotel groups that carry out specific campaigns with special discounts to facilitate vacations for those who have a worse economic situation. “This is a sector that is empathetic with social realities,” they point out. Likewise, they recommend taking a look at the statistics to see that lately vacations have been reduced and few people end up spending a full week: the vacation profile has changed a lot and now stays are from three to five days.
Meanwhile, from CCOO-PV they make an incisive reading of the data and point out that the data on high risk of poverty and material deprivation should focus the priority of public policies in favor of the social cohesion of the social majority. “Despite the quantitative data on job creation or the increases in the lowest wages, the growing trend continues in aspects such as the number of people who cannot afford a week of vacation and are deeply alarming, because they are accompanied by other deficiencies that directly affect the quality of life (food, thermal comfort, etc.) ”, defends the union.
In this context, of monetary policy restriction in which interest rates suffocate people who have a mortgage, or the extreme difficulties in paying the rental price, CCOO-PV points out that “a perfect storm occurs in which inequality runs rampant, polarizing society in other aspects”.
