- Hosbec recommends closing all hotels and apartments within three days
- Holidaymakers, many of them elderly and in groups that are at risk, could be out on the streets across the Costa Blanca
Hosbec, the Association that represents hoteliers and their staff hotel in the Valencian Community, is recommending to the government that it closes all hotels, holiday apartments and other tourist accommodation for as long as the current Coronavirus emergency exists.
They say that they currently consider that hotel and holiday activity is “incompatible with the current state of emergency” and that they “Seek to safeguard the safety of our workers, clients and the general population”
The Association said on Sunday afternoon “We would have liked the closure to have been decreed by order of the Government, as has happened in other countries, but in the absence of any political decision, as members of the hotel industry we have decided to self-regulate ourselves in the face of these serious problems.”
The state that this closure is due to a clear situation of “force majeure, aimed at safeguarding the safety of our employees, our clients, and the general population” and to be able to scrupulously comply with the decree that declares the state of emergency for the management of the health crisis that is being caused by Covid-19.
Hosbec say that “Hundreds of hotels have already decided to close and many others are seriously considering joining with our action as an urgent need in order to control the health crisis that is already causing serious economic problems.”
Hosbec considers that “hotel and holiday activity is clearly incompatible with the measures being taken by the Central Government to confine the population to their homes, so keeping hotels open does not help with or provide the isolation conditions that are necessary to control the coronavirus pandemic.”
A spokesperson said that the decision has been communicated to the tourist authorities in the Valencian Community, to the Presidency of the Generalitat and to the mayors of the main City Councils for their information, as well as to tour operators and travel agents. “We intend to start the procedure as soon as possible so that all the clients are out of the hotels within 72 hours, before 0:00 am on Thursday, March 19, at which time the complete closure of the hotels will take place”.
The Association say that they feel the time frame is more than reasonable and plenty of time to allow repatriation of all tourists to their places of origin.
However it is understood that not all hotels support the Hosbec move and that many still wish to remain open.
But with Jet2 and easyJet no longer flying into Spain what the hoteliers have failed to address is just how many of their current guest, the majority of which are British, are going find the additional funds, and quite possibly the flights that will be able to repatriate them.
Meanwhile they say that the impending closure is not aimed at people who live on campsites in caravans or in mobile homes as they are able to meet the quarantine conditions and limitations in their homes during their long stay.
