The Lanzarote tourism business association has made lying and misinformation a formula for relating to administrations.
The Lanzarote Tourism Federation and its top manager Susana Pérez, also president of ASOLAN, have turned lying into a formula for relating to public administrations, which is completely intolerable. At this point, I firmly believe that they themselves are disqualifying themselves as representatives with the institutions.
Let's go to the last example. Last December, the increase in rates was announced by the Art, Culture and Tourism Centers of Lanzarote. This produced an angry response from Asolan (Member of the Tourism Federation) in the board of directors of the Tourist Centers, where they have representation, it is not very well known why... The Association of Travel Agencies also expressed great opposition to the increase. Faced with this situation, the political leadership decided to hold a meeting where the differences would be put on the table to try to reach an agreement.
The aforementioned meeting was held on December 18. It was attended by Oswaldo Betancort, as President of the Cabildo; Angel Vázquez as Counselor of the CACT; The president of the Association of Travel Agencies and Tour Operators of Lanzarote, as well as its vice president; a technician from the Lanzarote Tourism Federation and José Valle, President of the Chamber of Commerce of the island, as a man of peace. In that meeting, no one discussed the increase in rates and they even congratulated themselves on the good harmony and the ability to reach this agreement. The President of the Cabildo read the minutes up to twice.
That same afternoon, the Cabildo of Lanzarote published a press release in which it recounted the success of the conclave and its good tone. The surprise arises when the next day an official communication from this business association "denies" the agreement. The press release left the Island Council as a liar, and raised its voice again, generating a new discussion about the already taken agreement of the new prices of the Centers.
This article will not go into assessing the CAT rates, I have already done so previously, what I want to make clear is that the lack of seriousness of a business association, which not only manipulates data, but also allows itself to lie about the meetings it attends, distorting reality, denying existing agreements, even accusing those who tell the truth of being false, invalidates it as a public interlocutor.
This type of behavior is certainly reprehensible and condemns the institutional relationship of the liar. The issue is of utmost seriousness. How and why is an institution going to sit down with a business association willing to distort the content of the meeting? How can a business association give seriousness to its agreements when it lies about them? What kind of interlocutor is this?
By the way, this is not new. Another example was the last Berlin fair, where Susana Pérez invented that the then President of the Cabildo of Lanzarote insulted the British people. She put in the mouth of the first institution that its president Dolores Corujo did not want more English people on the island. A nonsense of biblical proportions. Around this, a campaign was organized about the lie, without caring about the consequences. At that time and for the greater glory of shamelessness, we were experiencing an intense pre-campaign. Many laughed at the joke for political interests. Today we see that when the lie is installed, it does not do so in a single direction but converts the fallacy into a tool of work and pressure.
It is sad that we reach this level, because Lanzarote needs a true tourism business association, which brings rigor to its analyses, and even demands legitimate claims. What it does not need is a capricious business association, which confuses the claim with lies and defamation. Yesterday it was Corujo, today it is Oswaldo, tomorrow whoever comes. The loss of credibility of the business association is also the loss of value of the sector. Without a reasonably respectable interlocution, good businessmen (which also exist) will have to look for new formulas if they want someone to take them seriously.
