In case not finding waiters were not enough, the hospitality faces a new problem this summer: where to accommodate them

According to a recent report Prepared by Obsbusiness School, tourism represents 15.2% of the total of the national economy and 2025 has all the signs of becoming a year of record for this sector, with an estimate of 98 million tourists, which represents an increase of 4% compared to last year. These tourists will spend about 138.5 billion euros.

The data from the Ministry of Industry and Tourism They pointthat the sector will use a total of 2.99 million people. Such and as they highlight in Five daysthe main problem facing the hotel sector is not just the Personnel shortage. Is that, although they can hire workers to cover the high season in summer, these They cannot be paid The accommodation by the High price of rentals In tourist areas.

Homemade. According to the last ‘Rent prices report in Spain’ Published by Idealista, the average price in Spain is 14.5 euros per square meter. That is, a 60 square meter accommodation should cost about 870 euros. However, the price increases when we approach tourist areas such as Málaga (16.3 euros/m2), Balearic Islands (19.7 euros/m2), Barcelona (23.9 euros/m2). In the case of the Balearic Islands, for example, the rent of a 60 -square -meter house would amount to 1,182 euros, a figure that can be doubled in high summer season.

The high price of rentals makes it unfeasible that workers from other territories move to the main tourist destinations during the months of greater influx because, literally, The salary is gone Only in the rent.

Work and accommodation. The hoteliers of the Balearic Islands were the first to alert the situation. Hotel chains Meliá, Riu, Barceló and Iberostar had planned increase your templates To meet summer demand. Due to the difficulty of finding accommodation for their new employees, chains have been forced to reserve a part of their facilities as accommodation during the summer months, offering it for free as an incentive to attract qualified talent. Hospitality entrepreneurs in the Canary Islands, meanwhile, They offered to build homes at priced price to rent to workers in the sector.

However, the Ministry of Tourism estimates that only about 455,000 employees work in these large chains that have enough financial muscle to assume the cost of the accommodation of its employees. The other 2.5 million remaining employees belong to restaurants, bars and other small businesses. That leaves them with a serious problem, no longer due to lack of labor, but because rental price It makes someone from outside move during the high season to work.

The only way out: adapt. It is materially impossible that the supply of local labor covers all the demand for the hospitality during the high season, so, given the impossibility of hiring more personnel, restaurants and small hospitality businesses of those those Tourism areas “Tensioning“They have chosen to adapt and reduce their care schedule depending on their staff.

According The data of the Turijobs Employment Portal published by Self -employed and entrepreneurs87% of restoration businesses have had to apply these time adjustment measures to adapt to the lack of personnel.

Desestationalization of tourism. One of the objectives of the tourism sector is Destationalize itTo, thus stabilize demand throughout the year allowing a more rest and economic continuity market, instead of focusing all the activity in the summer months. As they highlight in The countrypart of that goal is being achieved, and during the first three months of 2025 it has been increased by 5.7% The number of tourists, so that the tourist season is now ahead of May and ends beyond October.

The de -stationalization of tourism would allow employees to settle in these destinations throughout the year, not only during the summer months, stabilizing in turn the availability of a sufficient local workforce.

Long -term strategies. Given an unlikely scenario of moderation in rental prices, the most affected companies in the sector have adopted a long -term local personnel collection strategy. Thus, the dependency of personnel from other autonomies is reduced and, with it, the problem of accommodation.

Portaventura World and University Rovira and Virgili signed a training agreement In 2024 for 150 employees per year. This agreement offers, in addition to a training accreditation, a job at the facilities and the Tourist Resort of Port Aventura once the training is finished. In the same line the initiative of the hotel chain THB Hotels moves that, through Your program THB College has offered accommodation and training to more than 2,000 employees since its creation in 2014, eliminating the problem of the shortage of qualified and accommodation personnel for them.

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