Leader of the Opposition Asks Sanchez to Help Spain’s Tourism Sector By Lifting Travel Restrictions and Creating a Tax Reduction Plan

THE leader of Spain’s right-wing Popular Party, Pablo Casado has demanded that the Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, come up with a comprehensive plan of fiscal reductions for the tourism sector in Spain and to life the restrictions on inter-provincial mobility, “as requested by the sector from June and July” as Spain “needs to gradually catch its breath.”

“The government has to help the tourist sector. It cannot give up the whole year saying that they will not open until December 31, so far they can only accept ERTEs and have to close their establishments,” said Casado after visiting Room Mate Oscar Hotel with the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, one of the 22 hotels enabled by Madrid for the rest of health professionals and workers in essential sectors.

Casado assures that he has met with employers in the tourism industry and with the hospitality sector, the PP president has stressed that these sectors are undergoing “tremendously difficult circumstances” during the coronavirus crisis.

Casado recalled that tourism in Spain represents 13 per cent of national GDP and almost 14 per cent of all national employment, meaning that “almost three million Spaniards live off the tourism sector.” In addition, he stressed that “€1.5 billion are at stake if the sector does not begin to de-escalate with massive tests, protection material for its workers and with the confidence of a country that is committed to one of its most fundamental sectors.”

For this reason, Casado has asked the government “for a plan to reduce taxes, to incentivise Spanish tourism on an international level, and to lift interprovincial mobility restrictions to as the tourism sector has requested, starting in June and July, depending on the progression of the pandemic.”