The luxury hotel industry is experiencing a unique moment in Madrid. Since the end of the pandemic, large international brands have landed (Four Seasons or JW Marriott) and pharaonic renovations have been launched (Ritz or Rosewood Villamagna), to which we must add all the projects underway (Nobu, Evok, Nomade or Metropolis ) and the macro-renovation of the Palace hotel, whose completion is scheduled for 2026. All of this, together with an unprecedented growth in international and national tourism in Spain, has led to a hotel boom in rates, with the Four Seasons at the helmwith an average price that was close to 1,000 euros per night and room in 2022 and 2023.
Behind this showcase lies, however, a job insecurity that reflects the contradictions between foreign tourist demand at historic highs (This year it is expected to reach 95 million travelers in Spain) and a stingy human resources policy, with “eternal” working hours, unpaid overtime and massive hiring of unqualified personnel. These were the main demands of the protests organized by some workers at the Rosewood Villa Magna in Madrid, who gathered mobilized by USO Madrid last Wednesday demanding an improvement in their working conditions.
The hotel’s staff is currently made up of about 300 employees, a figure 40% higher than that registered before the pandemic, although the workers’ representation considers that this number has several pitfalls. “Includes Amos restaurant workerslocated on the ground floor of the hotel (the previous restaurant was external), and those of the outletswhich practically did not work before.” In any case, the labor demands focus on salary conditions and especially on working conditions, with hours that exceed what was agreed in the agreement and with a growing list of sick leave and leaves of absence due to depression and anxiety. “We charge as if we worked in a four-star hotel when we work in a very luxurious five-star hotel,” they lament. “We have a lack of structural personnel that is covered only occasionally with unqualified temporary employment agency (ETT) personnel. At the same time we have a lot of pressure to provide a top quality service for clients who in some times can pay up to 900 euros for the cheapest room.”
Sources close to Sancus Capital Partners, owner of the Rosewood Villa Magna and Bless hotels in Madridboth five stars, assure that the main asset of the Rosewood Villa Magna hotel, where the demonstrations took place (a minority in their opinion), are its employees. “We do not like that there is a single dissatisfied worker. A happy worker is a happy customer and vice versa. That is why we are very attentive to anything that happens to them or any claim they have. Good proof of this have been all the measures adopted since the pandemic with the workforce, since there were no layoffs despite the critical economic situation and they were even complemented with the provision of the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) so that they did not lose purchasing power. and The payment of the two extraordinary payments was advanced to them to guarantee their liquidity”.
The diagnosis of employment in the capital’s hotels carried out by the CC OO Madrid Services Federation, however, is the opposite of that pointed out by the owner of the Rosewood Villa Magna. “The Madrid accommodation suffers from a clear commitment to the quality of the staff, with its hiring policies and its lack of continuous training, despite having public subsidies financed by the contributions of companies and staff. This causes staff replacement problems and excess turnover, making it incapable of retaining the talent necessary to provide a good service. Another important fact to highlight is the lack of incentives linked to experience and seniority, a fact that also greatly favors the flight of talent and staff loyalty.” Faced with this deterioration, the growth of the arrival of international tourists to Madridespecially from the United States, Latin America and Asia, has skyrocketed since the start of the pandemic, increasing the income and profit of hotels. “Income per available room has increased by 21.55% between 2019 and 2013, while salaries increased by 10% in the same period,” CC OO highlights.
The Palace hotel in Madrid, another icon of luxury, was the only one that suffered a collective dismissal, announced in April 2021 with the departure of 152 people (a third of the workforce), a figure that was finally reduced to 124 workers. “It was the first one to open after the first weeks of the pandemic and no one understood why they did it with occupancy of ten rooms. The objective was to accumulate several quarters of losses and thus be able to justify an ERE for economic reasons,” union sources at the hotel emphasize, confirming the same labor problems as at the Rosewood Villa Magna. “There is a lot of discontinuous permanent staff, so we have a permanent staff deficit. We do not have outsourced departments, but there is a lot of demand for ETT to hire housekeepers, janitors, laundry porters, assemblers, waiters.”
A photograph similar to that of the Wellington hotel, also a five-star hotel, whose workers have signed a salary increase for the next three years (2024, 2025 and 2026) with annual increases of 4%, 3% and 3%, respectively, which do not They compensate for the loss of purchasing power accumulated since 2008 nor the lack of permanent staff, with the cleaning department outsourced and with a large presence of workers hired by ETT, especially waiters or waitresses and waiters. “Everything works out because of our professionalism. We work much harder than before due to new demands and to train the youngest and least experienced people,” says a hotel worker.
The job insecurity at Villa Magna, therefore, is general among luxury hotels, although with nuances. Santiago Glodosindo, president of the Business Committee of the Ritz hotel, recognizes that the pressure on workers has grown with the new production model that has been established. “It is luxury upon luxury. Priority customer service 24 hours a day. Before reopening in 2021, the garden did not open until spring and is now open all year round, requiring food and beverage, cleaning and maintenance staff. Something similar has happened with breakfasts.” With this new trend, we have gone from a workforce of 226 permanent workers affected by the ERTE in the pandemic to another that reaches 390 workers. “It is not at all oversized, since we have to continue hiring temporary workers.” For this reason, union representation is constantly vigilant to avoid the abusive use of hiring personnel through temporary employment agencies. “We are very against the ETT model, since any worker who is not part of the staff does not work the same and generates a loss of professionalism.”
Bruno Hallé, partner and co-director of the real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield Hospitality in Spain, emphasizes that the large investments made by the owners of hotels have revalued both the assets and the rates they charge their clients for the product they offer, but the same has not happened in the case of the service. “When a client pays 500 euros for a room, they want top quality service. The human resources part in the Spanish hotel industry is quite weak in terms of quantity and quality and that can affect the client when it comes to paying such high rates.”
