Employers and companies in the sector are asking the Ministry of Industry and Tourism to disburse the aid from the European funds.

There are companies that have been financing projects for more than 18 months and delays in payment are putting their viability at risk.

Of the total 70,000 million euros of Next Generation funds for emergency aid to address the economic and social damage caused by Covid-19 approved by the European Commission in 2020, only 130 million euros have been allocated to direct aid to companies in the main economic sector of our country, Tourism, for their digitization through the line of «Last Mile» projects of component 14 of the Secretary of State for Tourism and, to date, almost 4 years later, not a single euro has been paid.

The tourism sector has been one of the hardest hit by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, activity fell by approximately 90%, forcing many companies to close or leaving them in a state of great economic uncertainty. Almost four years later, the situation remains the same, but the reasons are very different.

The arrival of the Next Generation EU recovery funds promised to be a relief for the tourism sector, with significant investments to boost its recovery and promote digitization to improve its competitiveness. However, today, almost four years later, dozens of companies are once again considering closing down precisely because of the delay in the disbursement of the aid provided for in the European funds.

Companies in the sector confirm that: «the delay in the payment of the aid is generating serious liquidity problems in the company, putting at risk the viability of the projects presented and even the viability of the company itself».

The first call for «Last Mile» projects of 2021 endowed with 25 million euros of funding was not published until 2022, the evaluation of the projects was not completed until July 2023, when the final resolution proposal was published and, as of today, in 2024, not a single euro of the Covid-19 emergency aid of 2020 has yet been disbursed to the 148 companies that have already completed and financed the projects.

However, last February 2024, the second call for this same line of «Last Mile» aid was announced (the third call has been cancelled because it was outside the execution deadlines required by the European Union) with an amount of 104 million euros to be distributed among smaller projects and a greater number of companies, so the sector fears that this new line of aid will take years to be paid to its beneficiaries and could bankrupt hundreds of companies that rely on these funds to undertake their digitization projects.

SMEs in the tourism sector currently, after the pandemic, have a limited financing capacity and it could happen that the exceptional opportunity for a large number of Spanish tourism SMEs that this call for aid represents could turn into a nightmare if the payment is not made within the appropriate deadlines

For this reason, industry sources request the Government to urgently execute the pending payments to the 148 companies of the first call of 2021 to avoid their bankruptcy and the loss of hundreds of jobs and to take the necessary measures to avoid that the delays in the payment of the second call of 2024 mean a failure in the management of a unique opportunity for our country and our industry as have been the Next Generation Recovery Funds and that, additionally, put at risk even more companies and jobs in the coming months.