The president of the Lanzarote Tourist Federation, Susana Pérez, spoke this Wednesday before the microphones of Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero to clarify the controversy over the increase in the price of tickets to the Art, Culture and Tourism Centers of the island that has confronted the Cabildo with the employers.
Pérez began by criticizing the effusiveness with which the management of the Centers has announced this agreement and remarked that "what they consider [from the management of these spaces] to be the great agreement of the world is simply that what is being sold as of 2023 has been respected".
Among other points, she pointed out that "the tourist who comes to Lanzarote does not do so only for César Manrique and the tourist Centers".
Thus, she added that "no agreement has been reached on the main points" and that for 2024 "there remains an increase of 60% [in tickets] and up to 100% [in prices] of tourist groups".
Differences on how and when to apply the increase
In particular, given the imminent rise in prices for next year, Susana Pérez has defended that "travel agencies have published the catalogs of this winter with 2023 prices". Therefore, these agencies will have "to include as costs that increase of 60 or 66% in some cases during the first four months" of the year. However, the Centers have warned that they will respect the tickets already purchased so that they can be exchanged until May 1 of next year.
For its part, the Lanzarote Tourist Federation has insisted that "there has been no agreement on a progressive or gradual increase", as the Federation requested. At the same time, they also requested that this increase in rates not begin on January 1, but rather from May 1, with the start of the spring-summer season.
"The prices of the excursions are already published and I will not be able to change those prices from January," added Susana Pérez, who indicates that prices cannot be raised suddenly because customers "will reject it and will not buy". For the manager, the option is to gradually raise prices from the beginning of January until reaching its peak in the month of May or wait until the beginning of May to make the total increase.
"There will be people who can pay, but there will be people who cannot pay. There are Centers that will not be visited, generally the least demanded, and visits and income in those Centers will decrease. There will be areas, in the municipalities of the north, such as Haría, where visits and expenses will decrease," defended Pérez, who believes that the increase in rates in these spaces will mean a loss of visitors.
"The opposite effect will be achieved. The star tourist center of the Timanfaya National Park, far from decreasing, will cause it to become more saturated in that space," defends the Lanzarote Tourist Federation.
Differences in economic points
Thus, Susana Pérez has insisted that the CEO of the Tourist Centers, Ángel Vázquez, has not presented the economic studies requested by the Lanzarote Tourist Federation before reaching this agreement. "They will have to deliver it to the Board of Directors, because the responsibility is not only of the CEO," she urged.
Despite the fact that the Centers defend that a common agreement was reached, "travel agencies regret that the key points have not been considered". Among them, the management of the Tourist Centers has not yielded to the request to offer them a commission of 40% of the profits. In this line, Susana Pérez has defended that the tour operators "contribute 50,000 air seats per week" to Lanzarote, or what is the same, 200,000 seats per month.
In addition, they invest a lot of money promoting the destination at origin, with excursions, buses or tourist guides. "I have to pick up 60 clients from different hotels and tourist centers," she exemplified.
The also manager of the Insular Association of Hotel and Tourist Apartment Entrepreneurs of Lanzarote (ASOLAN) has pointed to Ángel Vázquez himself and has assured that "more than one needs to do a master's degree in tourism management and know more and better how the industry works".
"More than one needs to do a master's degree in tourism management and know more and better how the industry works," said Susana Pérez.
In this line, the Lanzarote Tourist Federation insists that "there has been no agreement, there is a point on the table, that of the individual ticket and voucher", Pérez remarked. "If you want to raise 60% you are free. You will see what clients you are going to have and on the other hand, as I say, the tourism industry works with tourist calendars, therefore in five days, in 15 days or even in a month raising prices on January 1, that's not how it works," she concluded.
