The first day of the 10th International Forum for Entrepreneurs and Tourism Professionals, Futurismo 2023, debated the Challenges of tourism transformation, in a meeting moderated by the journalist and director of La Gaveta Económica Antonio Salazar.
The tourism tax and regulatory risk was one of the topics discussed by the speakers, who expressed their opposition to this measure. Pere Casas, Director of the Tourism-Hotel Business at Banco Sabadell, lamented the “excessive regulation”, and stressed that “it is much easier to create a tax than to regulate funds”.
Antonio Garzón Beckmann, founder of NutriHotel, added that “600 million euros are expected to be made from tourist taxes, which would be around 8 or 9 euros per overnight stay”. Jorge Marichal, president of Ashotel, expressed himself in similar terms, criticising that “in the Canary Islands, even with a licence, it is no longer possible to build”. He also said that “Spain is a country of civil servants, not waiters, we would be better off if we really were a country of waiters” and warned that the hotel sector is already “quite squeezed and we can’t do any more”.
Susana Pérez, president of the Lanzarote Tourism Federation and Asolan, pointed out that during the pandemic reforms and improvements were made to the sector, but insisted that the problem is “the lack of management and planning on the island, not saturation”.
Terry Mederos, Chief Innovation Officer at Tenerife Tourism Board, indicated that “if we want the future of tourism in the Canary Islands to be sustainable, we must enhance our capabilities with new technologies”.
