In recent days, I have been reading various criticisms that the tourism association ASOLAN has been making about the price increases applied to the Tourist Centers in 2024, and, having seen this, I think it is time to ask ourselves again what the hotel association is really doing on the board of directors of the CACT. But let's go step by step...
It has been more than a year since the implementation of the fare increase for tickets to the Art, Culture and Tourism Centers of Lanzarote. This increase was made with a significant price increase of around 60%. It also eliminated the bonuses that packaged the centers into a single offer. Everyone knows what my opinion was. I was in favor and I put it in writing in an article on lavozdelanzarote.com.
Today we can say that the fare increase was a success for several reasons, and the main one is that the data corroborates it. On the one hand, more money has been billed, and on the other hand, fewer tourists have entered. The idea is clear: greater profitability with better conservation of the environment.
The numbers are: in 2024, 14.9% fewer visitors entered compared to those who decided to see the CACT in 2023. At the same time, billing has increased by nearly 12 million euros (data provided by the CACT). A huge and historic success.
By the way, for those who said that this would affect the industry, just comment that visitors to the island of Lanzarote reached historic records last year, as did spending at the destination and the increase in hotel rates.
The island is doing better than ever and the CACT are billing more than ever
And this is where the umpteenth ridiculousness of the tourism association ASOLAN appears. The hotel association opposed the fare increase of the Centers, with several arguments. First, as they always do when something doesn't suit them, they proclaimed a tourist Apocalypse, which did not happen. They said it was not good for the Centers... and even a fear campaign was used to frighten the camel drivers, who were going to lose their livelihood because of the increase in fares. Of course, if ASOLAN has distinguished itself by anything, it is by its concern for the Lanzarote camel driver... anyway.
Currently, they continue stubbornly, with more subtle issues, but equally lacking in sense and rigor.
They criticize a successful measure saying "that the increase had to be staggered, since no company has increased its rates by 60% from one year to the next." What was truly serious is that the company did not raise rates for decades, leaving the entrance to Timanfaya cheaper than a "cubalibre" in a hotel. Or what is the same, the centers were the theme park of the hotels. The public at the service of the interests of the usual suspects.
They also argue "that to raise rates you have to give more value to the visit, do more things." Simply no. This theory is based on the contempt that is held for our heritage. The visit to Timanfaya could not cost between 6 and 9 euros. If you want to do different things that add value, they should be charged separately.
In addition, Asolan has criticized that by raising prices, people stop consuming in other places, what the CACT take more is not billed by others. This peculiar concern seems curious to me on the part of an association that has all-inclusive hotels among its associates, something that does eliminate any distribution of wealth on the island.
Listening to Asolan meant losing millions of euros
If the increase in rates had been slowed down in '24, almost 12 million euros more would not have been billed in tickets. If we add that year after year, the income that the company would have given up would be tens of millions... something that ASOLAN would have loved but that in no case benefited the company it represents on the board. Rather, it is a betrayal.
In short, what seems more and more evident every day is that the tourism association uses its place on the board of directors of the Centers to pressure against decisions that benefit the company itself. A kind of Trojan Horse that intends to rule in a place where the interest in the public and the conservation of the environment are not in the first person.
To this we must add the absurdities that we have seen come out of the "mouth" of this association in large headlines. I will give two clear examples:
In 2017, the association advocated that in order to raise hotel rates and bring in higher quality tourists, they should be allowed to put hammocks on the beaches for the hotels. I think it speaks for itself. I can't imagine the clients of hotel X going to their group of hammocks... The next thing would probably be to ask the people of Lanzarote not to bother on the beaches of their own island.
Asolan despised the lives of the people of Lanzarote
During the pandemic, the tourism association brutally pressured the island and the archipelago to be lax in the control of Covid-19. To the cry of "Turkey (which did not do controls) is stealing our tourists!". Today Lanzarote receives more than 3.5 million tourists and can boast of having protected its population in the covid in an exemplary manner. Gaining reputation and seriousness as a destination. Thanks, once again, to not listening to the association. And, by the way, the tourists keep coming, they didn't stay in Turkey.
Over time, Asolan's theories sound crazy, absurd and lacking in any rigor, so that someone takes them into account. I don't want to give more examples... which there are, but the truth is that not even ASOLAN respects itself by having such an erratic and ridiculous trajectory.
They have the right to rant
Of course, Asolan has the right to rant as much as it deems appropriate. We are in a free country and the association is accountable to its own members. But, with the same freedom, it is urgent that it be removed as a power group from the institutions.
Not because they represent the interests of a series of multinationals and foreign companies, far from the well-being of the people of Lanzarote, which they also do. But because their reasoning is absurd and goes against the very institutions they claim to represent and against the people of Lanzarote. Over time, their "analyses" do not withstand the slightest rational criticism. Today it is a problem for the progress of the island and its institutions. Just as there was courage to raise the rates and that border was crossed, courage is needed to make new decisions that benefit the proper functioning of the CACT... Alea iacta est.
