The president of the Regional Advisory Council of BBVA in the Canary Islands and of Domingo Alonso Group, Óliver Alonso, member of the executive committee of the CEOE, expressed this Wednesday his solidarity with the president of the FEHT of Las Palmas, José María Mañaricua, for the criticism that has received after trying to defend the theory that cleaning employees in the hotel sector are paid better than those in the same sector in the office environment.
Alonso, in his Linkedin profile, said that "I cannot agree" with those like in SER Las Palmas, where the comparison occurred that caused a confrontation with a journalist on the air, and added that: "Mr. Mañaricua was in every polite moment claiming his right to speak. We may or may not agree but he did not lose his temper."
According to SER in Las Palmas Mañaricua, literally: "he completely lost his nerve during an interview on Hoy por Hoy Las Palmas, with Eric Pestano, when the journalist asked him if they had the intention of raising tourism salaries." Mañaricua would have expressed his discomfort with the treatment of SER Las Palmas to the point that he sent a statement to the media in protest.
For the president of the FEHT, it is clear that tourism generates wealth, 35% of the GDP and 40% of employment on the islands, although it also has negative consequences because the islands receive 14 million tourists (16 million in 2023) but for This requires adequate public management. Mañaricua has insisted that the leitmotif of the demonstration was the lack of housing, a problem that he believes is related to the State Housing Law. In any case, he has stressed that the situation of Gran Canaria is different from that of the other islands; In the southern area, for example, two hotels have been built in the last 15 years and 50.000 tourist beds have been lost and have become residential. Accommodation growth in Gran Canaria has occurred due to holiday housing and its lack of public regulation.
