Blackmail is a strong word, yet

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Zou de toeristische sector hier bedoeld worden?

Groet / Cees

On 05/05/2010 03:20 PM, Antid Oto wrote:
 > Re: Fwd: [Marxism] [microsound] Greek crisis and Europe
 > 10. Perhaps the capital of Southern Europe in time, too, will go on
 > this way, but until now the situation has been fundamentally
 > different. Tradition and inertia in economic structures create a
 > different model.

Blackmail is a strong word, yet…
http://www.neurope.eu/articles/100221.php
18 April 2010 - Issue : 881

Some two and a half years ago, on 11 November, 2007 (New Europe issue
755), we stressed the necessity, for the European Commission to open an
investigation into the Tour Operators oligopoly which was leading
European hoteliers to work below cost for a few companies (see reprint
below). At the time we noticed that no hotelier would dare to make a
complaint and no country would dare to under the fear of a boycott.
Indeed, we are talking about a few companies that can be counted by the
fingers of one hand. Indeed, it was this kind of situation that inspired
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov alias Lenin, in the context of dialectical
materialism, to speak of “exploitation of man by man.”
Tourism is an important source of income for many countries, especially
on the Mediterranean, including Member and non-Member States.
So far, the Competition Department of the European Commission has acted,
in our view, rather selectively. We will just remind you about the magic
used in support of the telecom giants in the case of roaming, the
biggest cover-up of the Barroso I Commission.
Yet, there is a new Commissioner for competition issues now, Joaquín
Almunia and besides being intelligent and forward looking, he comes from
a country, Spain, which is continuously subject of chronic blackmail by
the Tour Operators. The more so, that under the economic crisis, it
would be a nonsense to continue to close both eyes in favour of a
handful of business concerns, at the expense of several million
Europeans serving in the tourism industry.

(Reprint from New Europe issue 755, Nov 11, 2007). It would be
interesting to know why the European Commission has not yet opened an
own-initiative investigation in relation to the Tour Operators market.
Such investigations have been opened in the past for several sectors and
various cartels were unveiled. In all cases, serious fines were levied
by the Commission for concerted practices or abuse of collective
dominant positions and free market order was restored. It is a common
secret that the Tour Operators market in Europe is an oligopoly in the
hands of a few large groups. In this context, there is a growing number
of complaints which, for obvious reasons, do not become public,
referring to wide-spread phenomena of concerted practices against hotel
owners to keep prices low.
Tour Operators in many cases take advantage of the fact that the tourist
industry is not in its best times and obstinately refuse the inflation
indexation while pressing for more reductions, at the expense of the
quality of services offered, obliging the hotels to often sell below
cost to survive. The phenomena of “refusal of sale” have even been
noticed against some hotel owners who tried to “resist.”
The truth is that although this situation is well known, nobody dares to
speak because they are afraid of possible “sanctions” (for Hotels) or
boycott (for countries) from this collective dominant position of the
Tour Operators. This situation, together with the “all-inclusive”
packages that some Tour Operators oblige hotel owners to sell more and
more, leads to a low quality of services and the decline of the EU
tourism industry. It is time for the Commission to investigate this
sector, which is extremely important for the EU economy and a motor for
the Lisbon agenda.

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