The owner of the Pizzametro restaurant, in Granada, was amazed when he saw the electricity bill. With the new rates, your electricity bill has risen 1,500 euros in the last month, to rise to 3,730.
Your type of business, which depends on the continued operation of a large electric oven that does not rest from 11 in the morning to 11 at night – to which we must add the air conditioning – is one of the most affected. But the increases are being noticed, and a lot, in the majority of hospitality businesses that, needless to say, do not come from their best moment.
According to the Union of Professionals and Self-Employed Workers (UPTA), the average cost of electricity for a small business in July was 20% higher than in June, and your electricity bill increased by 40% compared to the same period last year. And in August the price has only increased.
“Without any doubt, everything that is increasing expenses comes at the most inopportune moment,” he says. Jose Luis Yzuel, President of the Spanish Hospitality Business Confederation. “And we, any local, have a high energy bill.”
Although spending is very diverse depending on the type of business and contract, Yzuel believes that many locals will suffer “Increases above 1000 euros”.
A slower than expected recovery
“These costs are unaffordable for most businesses in our country, where a small self-employed worker is already dedicating 30% of the production costs of his business to pay the electricity bill “, explains UPTA in a statement.
Although Yzuel recognizes that the summer has been positive for many hospitality companies, since “The national tourism has compensated enough to the international one”, the rise in the electricity bill is coupled with the permanence of restrictions that, in the opinion of the President of Hospitality of Spain, should have already been lifted: “In many territories about 80% vaccinated and restrictive measures as serious as when we were in full crisis ”.
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