Spain's luxury Parador hotels hit by 2-day strike

 
No Author Published: December 7, 2012    Comment on this article Leave a comment

photo - A man rests beside at parador hotel of Principe de Viana, in Olite, northern Spain on Friday, Dec. 7, 2012. Employees of Spain's premium hotel chain Parador, a state-run group that uses castles, monasteries and palaces, are holding a two-day strike to protest job cuts and possible closures. The Parador hotels group, which started in 1928, says a drop in demand could leave it with accumulated losses of euro107 million ($140 million) by the end of the year. It intends to cut 644 jobs out of a workforce of 4,400. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)
A man rests beside at parador hotel of Principe de Viana, in Olite, northern Spain on Friday, Dec. 7, 2012. Employees of Spain's premium hotel chain Parador, a state-run group that uses castles, monasteries and palaces, are holding a two-day strike to protest job cuts and possible closures. The Parador hotels group, which started in 1928, says a drop in demand could leave it with accumulated losses of euro107 million ($140 million) by the end of the year. It intends to cut 644 jobs out of a workforce of 4,400. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

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Government statistics published in September said a record 7.9 million tourists arrived during the peak vacation month of August, 5 percent up compared with the same month in 2011 and around 200,000 more than in the previous record month, July.

Tourism represents around 11 percent of Spain's gross domestic product and the government is trying to boost trade and create employment after the 2008 collapse of the property market, which triggered a deep financial crisis.

There are 94 Parador hotels in historic buildings in some of Spain's most beautiful locations. Among the most famous is the former Royal Hospital in Santiago de Compostela, a stunning palace with four beautiful cloisters built in 1499 to house pilgrims arriving to visit one of Christianity's most venerated shrines.

Another is situated within the gardens of the Alhambra in Granada, the luxurious palace used until 1492 by southern Spain's former Islamic rulers. When Gen. Charles de Gaulle, France's military leader and late president, decided to write his memoirs, he secluded himself in Jaen's Parador, a former Moorish fortress perched atop a mountain overlooking the olive groves and hills of Andalucia.

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