Imserso is preparing a profound remodeling of Social Tourism trips that will entail a new tender for the program where quality will be prioritized over price. The decision, announced yesterday, has been well received by the main hotel employers, who had harshly criticized the conditions of the latest editions of Imserso because, they claimed, it pushed them to work at a loss. Hotel associations such as Hosbec -based in Benidorm- had even appealed to the previous courts against the specifications of the program, without success. Now, Imserso and hotel companies seal peace while waiting for the new contract to be launched.
The estimated budget for the 2023-2024 edition grows by 14%, to 300 million euros and the offer is expanded by 70,000 places, approaching 900,000 so that more older people can take advantage of the program, they explained from the Institute for the Elderly. Sun and beach destinations will continue to be the majority in the program, but this time their proportion drops to 75% of the total offer, and 25% will be made up of new inland destinations.
These are incorporated for the first time all the provincial capitals, cultural circuits and nature. The quality of transportation, diets or accommodation will have an even more relevant weight within this mega-contract that helps a large number of tourist businesses maintain activity in the low season. In this way, an attempt is made to guarantee that, throughout the entire value chain, the conditions are created so that the winning companies (UTEs) have to negotiate upwards with the hotels, given that higher quality services are required.
The Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodations (Cehat) welcomed with “great satisfaction” the decision of the Ministry of Social Rights not to extend the current Imserso program and to launch the preparation of a new tender for the season. The employers recalled that the last contest produced “serious profitability problems” for service providers, forcing participating hoteliers to do so with “very low prices that caused them significant losses.” For this reason, they value the change in a “very positive” way, said its president Jorge Marichal.
The Hosbec employers also celebrated the remodeling of the program. “It was undeniable that the current situation of cost overruns and inflation made a new extension of the program unfeasible without serious consequences of deterioration,” they said.
The Council of Ministers must now approve the contract, after which the bidding process for the lots will begin. The objective of the Ministry of Inclusion is that it be resolved in September, before the start of the new season
