Asociación Provincial de Empresarios de Hostelería y Turismo de Lugo (Apehl)

The Provincial Association of Hotel and Tourism Businesses of Lugo (Apehl) asks the Government, in support of the statement made by the Spanish Hotel and Catering Business Confederation, for more urgent fiscal and administrative measures to facilitate the subsistence of hotel and catering businesses in the province and throughout the country. The president of the Apehl, Cheché Real, appeals to the “sensitivity and responsibility of the Government to soften as much as possible the devastating effects that this crisis is causing”.

Apehl considers the package of economic measures announced by the President of the Government to alleviate the effects of the coronavirus to be insufficient. Although they recognize the effort of the Government of Spain to curb the economic effects of this pandemic by mobilizing up to 200,000 million euros, they believe that “measures such as making the ERTES more flexible and those aimed at ensuring the liquidity of companies will undoubtedly help the entire business fabric; but it is necessary to adopt more measures to prevent the bankruptcy of the more than 300,000 hotel businesses that we have in our country.

Given the damage that is causing the crisis of coronavirus to the self-employed in our sector, consider necessary “the suspension of the contribution of the self-employed hotel and catering” and also claim “the suspension of any obligation to pay the hotel and catering establishments to the authorities, such as payment of Property Tax (IBI) and other municipal taxes such as taxes on the terraces. For this reason, they extend their claims to other administrative areas, such as local councils and the Autonomous Communities, which have direct jurisdiction over this type of tax.

They add that “it is also necessary to abolish all taxes and charges on all energy supplies and renegotiate policies and bank financing with greater flexibility”.

They also request ‘the suspension of the economic obligations of hotel and catering establishments to their landlords, since the latter are not operating normally’.

From Apehl they warn once again of the situation facing the hotel and catering businesses in the province, the limes give employment to many workers and are a fundamental part of our culture, a meeting point and a place to socialise.