The Lanzarote Tourist Board, Asolan, and the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT) urge both the Ministry of Development and the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce and the union agents to reach a definitive agreement that implies the immediate cancellation of the stoppages announced by Aena workers. According to the hotel association, these days of strike could generate "irreparable damage to tourism at a key moment for its recovery".
As Asolan and CEHAT, in which it is integrated, point out, "after the episodes that occurred last year (especially the Icelandic volcano crisis and the air traffic controllers' strikes), which had such a hard impact on the sector's activity, the Spanish economy and the tourism industry cannot afford a new threat against one of Spain's main economic engines".
In this sense, Asolan and the Confederation recall that the hotel sector recently showed optimism towards the first period of the year, an optimism that, according to the president of CEHAT, Juan Molas, could be truncated by this strike. "This announcement and the prolongation of this situation seriously endanger the image and attractiveness of Spain as a tourist destination, at a time when the hotel sector was finally seeing signs of recovery".
The president of the employers' association pointed out that the hotel occupancy during Easter Week 2010 exceeded 77 percent, which highlights the impact that the strike could have on the sector in this period alone.
In addition, Asolan, chaired by Susana Pérez, has once again expressed the need to "qualify certain structures, including airports, as essential services, in order to prevent the right to free movement of people from being endangered".
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