The Talent and Technical Expertise our fellow travelers for the recovery

The dry stop of the economic activity and in particular that of the tourist sector at the beginning of the season in most of the destinations and with an important demand already in books, has caused an absolute change in the planning of the year. It has blown up all the business plans for 2020, having to turn around and mutate rapidly towards a “survival” scenario in order to move forward.
A global situation without precedent. An extremely volatile common environment where a single certainty reigns; uncertainty, and in which businesses in the tourism sector have been particularly affected and impacted.
The consequences of the Covid-19 effect will drag them along for quite some time. Right now we are still in the course of the first phase, facing and successfully overcoming the health crisis, reducing the advance of contagion and limiting mortality as much as possible. We have a long and laborious reconstruction process ahead of us that will require time, capacity, ingenuity, flexibility, judgment and institutional support to overcome them. And it will not be a minor aspect to surround ourselves with good allies and fellow travelers, technicians, experts who, from the objective analysis, add their extensive expertise and human empathy that enables them to help the network of tourism companies that right now are debating in the midst of a sea of doubts and concerns.
“An unprecedented joint effort to face a global crisis also without precedent”
At GAT we got down to work quickly and in addition to renewing the confidence in the talent of the senior team that forms part of our structure, we also opted to take good advice from specialists in those more complex matters that fully affect our business sustainability.
Of all our concerns as hotel managers under different formulas, four issues are of primary concern to us:
– The impact of the Covid-19 on compliance with hotel leases.
– Effects of Covid-19 on the labour relations with the employees of the Hotel and Central services.
– The impact of Covid-19 on the fulfilment of the obligations assumed by the hotel operator towards its suppliers
– The provision of accommodation services
And in Garayar Abogados (www.garayarabogados.com) we find a perfect ally, the companion for this complex journey, we find answers, concrete solutions for each question and specific case. We would like to share them with the readers of the CEHAT newspaper, aware that they are surely shared doubts and useful answers for all of us.
In the questions concerning the payment of rent within the framework of the lease contract, Diego del Cuadro, managing partner of the firm, clarifies for us:
Is there room for renegotiation of the economic terms of the contract? And the unilateral suspension of the payment of rent?
“In a case like the present one, in which the hotel activity is paralyzed by a cause of force majeure, the balance in the contractual relations landlord-tenant is seriously affected. In these cases our legal system, and specifically the doctrine of the change in circumstances “rebus sic stantibus”, allows the tenant to demand that the landlord renegotiate the economic terms of the lease in order to achieve this rebalancing of benefits. The main reason for this legal approach is that the purpose of a hotel lease (both for buildings and for industry), i.e. the development of a business activity, is rendered impossible by a cause beyond the will and control of the lessee. Therefore, if such an activity is stopped due to force majeure (as is the case with the hotel activity at present) the contract becomes excessively burdensome for the lessee, and it could even be argued that the object of this contractual relationship is lost’.
Labour relations with our workers are more than just a technical and operational concern for GAT, they are a humane occupation and therefore a great responsibility that requires the best of responses. What measures does the current legislation provide for workers in the hotel sector?
“The closure of the hotel establishment decreed by government order constitutes the necessary budget so that the suspension of contracts or reduction of working hours derived from such closure may be covered by the special regime provided for in the implementing regulations (Royal Decree – Law 8/2020) for the ERTEs due to force majeure. The hotel operator will therefore be able to take advantage of both the reduced periods offered by the special scheme in this situation and the exemption from payment of the employer’s contribution provided for in the General Law on Social Security, while the hotel operator will be able to take advantage of the special scheme in the event of the closure of the hotel.

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