The summer camps of Catalunya have launched an alert due to the impact that the labor conflict between the educational community and the Departament d"Educació is already having. The sector maintains that the fall in bookings for the next academic year can cause irreversible damage to many facilities, especially the smallest ones and those in rural environments.
The situation is framed within the campaign promoted by teachers from centers in Maresme and Selva to pressure the Govern. In that context, teachers threaten to suspend school outings and camps starting next academic year, an initiative that adds the support of 673 Catalan schools and institutes, of which 187 are in the Girona regions.
The reservations fall in full hiring phase
The sector assures that accommodation bookings for camps have dropped by a 53% as a direct consequence of the campaign and the uncertainty generated. The vice-president of the Associació Catalana de Cases de Colònies i Albergs de Catalunya, Werner Estellé, warns that the moment is especially sensitive because now begins the phase in which many centers decide their stays.
"We are in an incipient phase of reservation intention, which is formalized especially between May and June" - Werner Estellé, Associació Catalana de Cases de Colònies i Albergs de Catalunya
Estellé highlights that as long as the conflict with Educació is not resolved, many centers will not formalize the camps nor the outings for next year's course. In his opinion, the problem goes beyond the immediate loss of activity and fully affects the viability of a model that largely depends on the school.
A business very tied to the school
The colony houses remind that, for many facilities, school stays represent close to 80% of the annual turnover. A sustained drop in reservations, they add, can make their operation unviable. Some still drag the economic consequences of covid and have less margin to absorb another blow of this magnitude.
The sector estimates that, if the situation continues, the economic impact could exceed 140 million euros in the educational leisure sector as a whole. Estellé compares the dimension of the crisis with that experienced during the pandemic and regrets that the houses are being dragged into an external conflict.
"These are figures similar to those of the pandemic" - Werner Estellé, Associació Catalana de Cases de Colònies i Albergs de Catalunya
"This is not just about the money we lose, but we call on the Govern to sit down and listen to the demands of the teachers" - Werner Estellé, Associació Catalana de Cases de Colònies i Albergs de Catalunya
"To be a bargaining chip is never liked" - Werner Estellé, Associació Catalana de Cases de Colònies i Albergs de Catalunya
Fear of permanent closures
The employers warn that the closure of houses can have permanent effects. They maintain that when an installation lowers the shutter it is not easy to reopen it, because the rent is lost and the business disappears. In this scenario, they warn that the loss of reservations could lead to an irreversible situation for part of the Catalan network.
"All houses that close will be lost, because the closing of a house implies the loss of rent and the closing of the business" - Werner Estellé, Associació Catalana de Cases de Colònies i Albergs de Catalunya
The sector itself insists that school camps have an educational function that should be recognized and integrated into the system. It also warns that, if in a few years this activity is to be fully recovered, there may no longer be sufficient supply because many businesses will have disappeared along the way.
Expectation in Girona
In Girona, the Fundació Esplai Girona Mare de Déu del Mont, which manages seven summer camps of the Diocese, remains on standby. Its director, Josep Bosch, points out that it is still too early to fully measure the effect of the campaign, as they do not usually work with reservations closed a year in advance.
"We do not usually have reservations a year in advance and, therefore, it is still too early to see it" - Josep Bosch, director of the Fundació Esplai Girona Mare de Déu del Mont
Bosch trusts that the situation will be resolved before the hiring freeze consolidates. The concern is shared in a sector that totals 516 youth facilities in Catalunya, including equipment managed by small businesses, summer camps of the bishoprics, and Generalitat hostels. In total, around 5,000 people work in the field of educational leisure and could be affected if reservations do not recover in the coming months.