Soltour, Nautalia and Mundiplan have decided to appeal to the Central Administrative Court of Contractual Appeals the exclusive award last July to the company Ávoris of the three batches of the trips of the Institute for the Elderly and Social Services (Imserso) of this time ada . The Resources of These Three Consortiums Could Delay the 2023/2024 Campaign for Up to Months, Which THIS YEAR HAS 900,000 Seats and Whose Sale Was Planned to Start Between Mid-September and Early October.
The tour operator Soltour, belonging to the Piñero Group, describes the award as “unfair” and ensures that it has not been made in accordance with the bases of the contract document. For this reason and after squeezing “all possible ways” of solution, he assures that he has been forced to present the consequent appeal rejecting this award made exclusively to Ávoris. He insists that he does not want to “not harm the program” and that proof of this is that he previously presented allegations before the Imserso Contracting Board.
The appeal presented is mainly focused on challenging what they consider “the unfair elimination of his candidacy, which was communicated to him the same day that he awarded the program.” The objective of the appeal is for the Contracting Board to re-evaluate the proposal for lot 1, the one referring to the peninsular coast, taking into account “the quality criteria of the contest”. In that lot, the two award criteria that most weighed were the hotel offer, with 39%, and the price, with 38%.
On July 7, Soltour, considering that its proposal had not been correctly assessed, presented a first claim requesting the correction. Two weeks later, the board accepted the claim and promised to study it, and finally on August 3 it proceeded to reject it and definitively award all the lots to Ávoris without, according to Soltour, the rest of the bidders having the option to respond. Soltour assures that it has tried at all times to work as quickly as possible so as not to hinder the Imserso program “and consequently, neither the rest of the competitors, nor the hoteliers, nor the suppliers and, of course, for the elderly who participate in the program “. “.
However, they acknowledge that this appeal will mean the suspension or delay of the start-up of the program, “a fact that the company has wanted to avoid at all times, and is one of the reasons why it presented a plea to the provisional decision” , explains the tour operator, recalling the savings that would be for taxpayers if the winner of lot 1 was Soltour, “since the winning proposal is much more expensive.”
“In view of the decision of the rest of the bidders who have seen fit to challenge this decision, we join them by presenting our own appeal. We remain more than convinced of the quality of our proposal and we expect a favorable result from the Contracting Committee as soon as possible”, says Tomeu Bennasar, CEO of Soltour Travel Partners.
The three losers have contested
This Friday, August 25, the term ended so that the companies that would attend the Imserso trips of the 2023 2024 season could appeal the award if they considered it appropriate. Last August, the three lots (peninsular coast, insular coast and getaway tourism and European origin) were definitively awarded to a single company, Ávoris Corporación Empresarial.
Soltour’s recovery is in addition to those carried out by Mundiplan, a temporary union of companies (UTE) made up of Iberia, Alsa and the IAG7 travel agency, was submitted to lot 1 and lot 2 (island coasts), as well as Seniorplan’s . , the joint venture formed by Seniorplan, Nautalia and Autocares Vera, which applied for lot 3 of inland and nature tourism. The filing of these appeals could paralyze or at least delay the launch of these trips for the elderly, whose marketing traditionally starts in mid-September or early October.
The resources of the three losing consortiums can take up to three months for the 2023/2024 campaign, which this year has close to 900,000 places, so the start would not take place until December if the resolution process lasts for weeks.
The court has a period of ten days to decide whether to admit the appeals for processing, in which case all the proposals would have to be re-evaluated. In principle, from the Ministry of Social Rights it is not contemplated that the resources cause a significant delay in the start of the trips, since we trust that the resolution of the same will take place throughout September.
It is not the first time that the bidding companies challenge the result of the contest. In the 2021-22 season, resources and the coronavirus pandemic meant that the travel program did not start until January 2022, and that it was only 60% executed.
Complete award to Ávoris
Ávoris Corporación Empresarial took over all the lots of the Imserso trips for the 2023-24 season, for one year (until August 31, 2024), being the first time that a single company has carried out all the hiring. His offer obtained the highest score in the three lots: 94.24 points for lot 1 of the Peninsular Coast; 100 points for lot 2 of Tourism of the Insular Coast (Baleares and Canary Islands), and 97.82 points in lot 3 of Tourism of Getaways and European Origin.
The Imserso program, valued at 842.9 million euros and with a total import of 71.7 million in subsidies, is a crucial program for the interests of the Spanish tourism industry during the low season. It has 886,269 trips, of which lot 1, on the peninsular coast, reaches half with 443,887 seats; It is followed by lot 2, on the insular coast, with 230,039, of which 120,000 correspond to the Balearic Islands; while number 3, for getaway tourism and European origin, totals 212,343.
The new program includes a 7.5% price increase and 70,000 new places, up to 886,269, with a 14% higher budget, some 300 million, among other novelties. In addition, the duration of the contract extends between September 1, 2023 and August 31, 2024.
