As advanced by La Voz de Ibiza, Palladium Hotel Group has taken the decision to withdraw from theas of December 31, from the Ibiza and Formentera Hotel Business Federation of Ibiza and Formentera (FEHIF), chaired since Thursday by Maria Costa Roig.presided since Thursday by María Costa Roig. José Luis Benítez, head of Institutional Relations of one of the most important hotel companies on the island, explained that the decision was communicated “more than a week ago” so “it has nothing to do with Thursday’s meeting“. His departure will mean a break for the employer’s accounts due to the high annual fee he paid, related to the number of beds he owns. “There was a company that presented some proposals to us, which fit perfectly. Those proposals were not well received, therefore, that candidacy (of Antonio Domenech, general manager of Vibra Hoteles) was not even presented, but we did not fit in with the federation,” explained Benítez. In addition, he said that “two years ago we supported the former president of the Hotel Federation (Ana Gordillo), we gave her our support, but we demanded some changes, some improvements that were not made“.
– What changes and improvements did they demand from you?
– We have always been claiming that we needed to improve communication, infrastructure, to have a little more weight in institutions. The Federation seems to be more interested in keeping a low profile. Something quite important is that the president is elected by the 12-member board of directors, which are three members from each territorial association. They are not elected by an assembly.
– Is it not a participatory democracy, is it direct?
– Democracy at the time of payment because we pay according to seats. But the vote is not weighted. Therefore, in the end we all have the same vote, but we all have different quotas according to our seats. Therefore, we, in that line, if we are not able to improve what we believe in, we do not want to continue to be there. What we do wish the new president the greatest success and we congratulate her, because her successes will be our successes.
– Are you going to find yourself with a budget break by 2025? Because if I understand correctly, you were contributing about 50,000 euros a year in dues.
– The quota is paid according to beds and we have high quotas. But it is not our problem. We even had already talked about raising the fees and a month ago in the assembly that was held at the Hotel Twins did not agree. And now it seems that in yesterday’s meeting it is thought that it can be done. Actually now they are going to accept many of the things that were proposed, but what was not proposed was to bring in people prepared to try to make changes and people who were outside that board. The Hotel Federation of Mallorca, for example, when someone runs for president, he brings a board of directors, independently of the different boards of the assembly. So, as they do not want to change the system, the system does not convince us. It is a voluntary association, and what we do is to leave this association and hopefully in a few years we will ask for membership again, because it means that things have changed and have improved. But right now we don’t have the confidence to stay there and that nothing changes.
– Is there a background also with leisure in the decision to leave?
– Not at all, leisure has nothing to do with all this.
– The continuist or immobilist trend does not view leisure as favorably as it should.
– No. There are hoteliers there who like entertainment, there are hoteliers who think that putting a DJ is vulgar, but they end up doing it, but it has nothing to do with that. If a hotelier is not happy with the entertainment in Ibiza, being the best entertainment in the world, then that hotelier has a problem.
– I imagine that you will continue within CAEB or is it too early to assess whether you will join the Association of Chains of Mallorca?
– We did not go out to set up anything. We simply left because we do not see that the line of work, and we had already warned several times, the last time two years ago and it has remained the same, nothing has changed. There are people who think that everything in the past was better and we are among those who think that maybe by improving things, trying to make adjustments, things get better. It is democracy. There was only one candidacy presented and the candidacy that was presented won. Congratulations, I hope it turns out great, but as it is voluntary, I do not want to continue. We as a chain do not want to continue because we do not feel well represented. It is not a question of now or tomorrow we are going to set up a new association. It is not in our plans.
– And ahead is the discussion of the collective bargaining agreement.
– This collective agreement has to be negotiated between hoteliers and unions. But whatever the Hotel Federation of Ibiza says doesn’t matter: if they think it’s good what is being done, great, if they think it’s bad, it’s also great. Because in the end the weight of the negotiation and the votes are carried by Mallorca. Our chain has always tried to be collaborative and try to be hand in hand with the Hotel Federation of Mallorca, because in the end the interests are practically the same for everyone. And I am one of those people who think that the most important thing for a company is its workers. We like to stand up for the workers, negotiate and sit down. Sometimes an agreement has been signed from Mallorca and here they have refused to sign it when they did not even have to sign it, simply because they were against it. So, the truth is that I do not understand these things and they are not, in my opinion, the correct way of working.
