The Center Excursionista de Catalunya (CEC) is testing a new management model for its mountain refuges, which began with Siurana and continues with the remodeling of Salardú, the Aran Hostel, which reopened last weekend after closing due to works in on 2021. This renovated accommodation has a hundred beds divided between double rooms with bathroom and those with a maximum of five beds. The CEC has hired a hotel and winter sports professional as director, as well as the rest of the establishment’s staff. In this way, the figure of the guard is dispensed with.
The president of the CEC, Eduard Cayón, explains that this formula began last year in Siurana, in Priorat, with only twelve spaces and very low occupancy, and will continue with the other seven owned by the club, one of which , the one in La Molina, is closed while waiting to also face its remodeling.
The cost of the rehabilitation works and the start-up of the Aran Hostal, located in an urban environment near the Aigüestores i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park, amounts to 1.6 million euros, according to Cayón. The investment has been possible thanks to a loan of 1.3 million from the Institut Català de Finances (ICF) and the 300,000 euros contributed as soft loans by eight partners. Likewise, the CEC organized a crowdfunding campaign that is still open to bring in more funds. So far, it has obtained just over 10,000 euros from 40 people linked to the entity.
“The Salardú shelter was not working well, a change of approach was necessary, to be able to have more control over the equipment. In 2019, it only registered some 4,600 overnight stays, with an annual occupancy of only between 10 and 20%â€, details the president of the CEC. This new management model in which the concessions of the shelters for guards disappear and paid personnel from the CEC are hired, which directly assumes all control, is expected to consolidate by 2030, Cayón calculates.
The CEC is a pioneer club in hiking created in 1876 and currently has 3,562 members.
Each refuge is a world and its success depends largely on the professionalism and love for the mountains of its rangers. Cayón assumes that in some the intervention of the CEC has been more urgent, as in those of Salardú and Siurana, but that in others it is not so much due to the solvency and experience of their teams. An ambitious challenge is to recover the Xalet de La Molina, closed in 2007 due to structural damage. “This is a very large and priority project, budgeted at four million euros, perhaps we will be able to start the works in 2025â€, considers Cayón.
The refuges are part of the great assets of the CEC, also of the FEEC, another of the entities that has this type of accommodation intended to house people who practice mountain sports. Traditionally, the owners hold competitions to grant the best candidates their management, which is customary to renew if the requirements are met.
The CirÃac Bonet de Siurana, located in a privileged viewpoint, functions more as a bar with a terrace than as a shelter. At the weekends it is full of tourists but overnight stays are very scarce. The national park of Aigüestortes and Estany de Sant Maurici has the crown jewels of the CEC in Catalonia: the refuges of Josep Mª Blanc, Amitges and Ventosa and Calvell. Ulldeter, in Setcases, and La Renclusa, in Benasque, complete the CEC accommodation offer.
