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In the opinion of the Union of Tourism,
Hotel and Food Service Workers of Argentina
(UTHGRA), no efforts or resources must be
spared in ensuring that its members and
their families can enjoy their vacation and
leisure time. That is why the UTHGRA is a
big part of Argentina’s efforts to promote
social tourism and achieve excellence in
services. Norberto Latorre, secretary of
finance of the Union, spoke with Sirel about
the activities, approach and new
undertakings of the UTHGRA in this field.
-The UTHGRA has a hotel in the
capital.
-In Buenos Aires we have a small hotel
which is used for a different purpose.
Our hotels are places made for leisure
and recreation, but this one in
particular is used to lodge the
relatives of our members who live
outside the capital and must travel to
Buenos Aires for health care reasons and
to receive very complex treatments. This
hotel is also available to union members
or leaders from outside the capital who
must come to Buenos Aires to take care
of any business or participate in events
organized by our union.
- How many rooms are there in the Los
Cocos hotel located in the mountains of
Cordoba?
-The hotel has 107 rooms and it includes
a resort with soccer fields, tennis
courts, basketball courts, racket ball
courts, and swimming pools. We offer our
members spacious recreational
facilities, where they can enjoy various
leisure programs, with something for
every member of the family. For 4 to 7
year old kids we have the mini club, and
for 8 to 12 year olds there is a group
of activity planners specialized in that
age range.
In addition to providing a personalized
and friendly attention, another aspect
that must be highlighted is our
excellent cuisine. We like to say that
in our hotels there’s no room for the
old saying “The shoemaker’s son always
goes barefoot.” Our menus rival those of
the most distinguished restaurants.
-And in Mar del Plata?
-Our hotel there has a total of 110
rooms, and there’s also the Saxo Hotel,
currently under renovation, which will
have 97 rooms. We’ve reduced the number
of regular rooms in that hotel so that
we could offer more suites and put in
two new elevators.
Practically all the rooms have an
excellent view of the sea, and we are
building a Spa with a heated pool, a
gym, a hydro-massage room, a sauna and
steam bath, a whirlpool, and a
relaxation room.
-How many members visit your hotels
every year?
-Some 30 thousand people, counting high
and low season groups.
-How much does a member have to pay for
the services in your hotels?
-In high season we have a rate which is
our most expensive compared to the rest
of the year, and in low season we have a
special service for social groups, which
can practically stay for free, with each
division paying only a season ticket.
The social tourism season runs from
April to mid December in all of our
hotels, and it is a system that gives
members the opportunity to visit the
region and stay at one of our hotels,
which is something they sometimes cannot
do in high season. I’d like to point out
that the service provided is exactly the
same as the one provided in high season.
-Another one of your services is
transportation to those vacation
centers.
-That’s correct. We have double-decker
buses, semi Pullman, which in high
season are used to take our members from
the city of Buenos Aires, and in low
season they also transport members from
our divisions outside of Buenos Aires.
We send the three buses to each division
and from there they travel to our
hotels. This gives our divisions the
possibility of showing members what our
organization is like in different parts
of the country.
-Do the members that stay at your hotels
in high season pay less in comparison to
other similar facilities in Mar del
Plata or Cordoba?
-Yes, definitely. A member pays about 15
to 17 dollars a day.
-That’s just for the room?
-No, full board and with bus fare included.
For those who are not familiar with the
distances, we are talking about 830 km if
you’re going to Cordoba, and 400 km if
you’re going to Mar del Plata, that’s if
you’re leaving from Buenos Aires. In
low season, members pay nothing at all. It’s
the division that pays a season ticket of 30
dollars, more or less, for 5 to 7 days.
-How do you obtain the money to finance
the purchase and maintenance of these
facilities, and the services provided by the
UTHGRA to its members?
-The money comes from the dues paid by our
members. With these union funds we also
build a lot of things, which should actually
be covered by the health care service, but
we help the health care service out,
contributing financially, for example, to
build clinics, purchase ambulances, etc. In
general, any health-care related facility or
equipment needed is obtained with union
funds, to allow the health care service to
have more resources to provide greater and
better medical attention. So, being two
separate bodies but with the same goals and
the same leaders enables us to achieve this
kind of synergies.
Besides having very good administration,
knowing how to manage our resources well and
with absolute transparency, and having a
sophisticated computerized system that
allows us to see things clearly, what really
makes it possible for us to grow as much as
we’ve grown is the union dues paid by our
members. We’ve completed works throughout
the country. Not just hotels. We’ve also
expanded old union offices and built new
ones, built new medical clinics, and, most
importantly, we have built and equipped more
than 20 professional training schools within
the unions, and in Mar del Plata’s case,
where the union office has gotten too small
for us, we were able to make the best of it
and set up a school.
-How many members does the UTHGRA have?
-About 180 thousand due-paying members. Our
registered members are 220,000.
-Members contribute 2.5 percent of their
salary.
-Yes, that is the contribution they make to
the union fund. They also contribute 3
percent of their salary to the health care
service. With this fund, plus the 6 percent
contributed by management to the health care
service, we are able to provide integral
services in the field of leisure and health.
With respect to health, I’d like to
emphasize that no matter how complicated the
illness, the health care service pays
absolutely everything; it covers 100 percent
of the expenses
.
-Is a chef training school being planned as
part of the renovation of the Saxo Hotel?
-Yes, a first-rate school. We will have the
privilege of working in state-of-the-art
kitchen facilities. We already have training
schools for cooks and cooking assistants;
now we will be training chefs.
In addition, we’ve torn down two old halls,
and in their place we’ve designed two new
ones in a two-story space. There we will
have spacious areas for conferences or to
hold our events and congresses.
-Have you considered the possibility of
reaching some form of agreement with other
labor organizations to exchange experiences?
- Yes, and my role as president of the
IUF’s HRCT sector has given me
the opportunity to make a lot of contacts
with leading cooking schools from around the
world, primarily in France, Italy
and Spain, which will enable us to
begin such experience-sharing. This chef
school will allow us to carry out this
initiative, which, like so many other
things, is promoted by the union.
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