Daredevils sprinting with one-tonne fighting bulls swallow an exhilarating cocktail of adrenalin and fear. Now, a new brand of jitters has set in at one of the world’s great fiestas as businesses ponder the party-pooping impact of economic woe.
Don’t bother asking the tens of thousands of revelers who kicked off Pamplona’s running of the bulls on Monday with a traditional rocket-firing ceremony outside the town hall. They’re too busy drinking beer or wine or cleaning off the flour, eggs or ketchup they hurled at each other to get the San Fermin festival off to a merry and messy start.
“People throwing sangria everywhere. It is just unbelievable,” said Ricky Birmingham, a 20-year-old from Australia.
PHOTO: REUTERS WARNING: EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOL CAN DAM
It is mainly merchants who are feeling the pinch of the world’s economic downturn. Rates on hotel rooms are down because of slacker demand, big-spending American and other foreign visitors are harder to find, and bars that usually make a killing off hordes of thirsty patrons from around the globe expect to serve up less booze.
The leaner times are visible elsewhere, too. The Pamplona city hall has cut its budget for the festival by more than 10 percent, to 2.5 million euros (US$3.5 million). And two Spanish TV networks that had been bickering over rights to broadcast the morning bull runs have agreed to do it jointly to save on costs.
A sobering new reality has set in here in Pamplona as the nation struggles with recession and a 17.4 percent unemployment rate. The party is far from over, but it might be watered down this time.
“We thought San Fermin would always fill up,” entrepreneur Mikel Ollo said. “We created a fictitious bubble, and that bubble has burst.”
Ollo runs a company called Incoming Navarra, which organizes VIP packages for San Fermin visitors, arranging posh accommodation, front-row views of the runs from balconies overlooking the route, a personalized tour guide to explain what they are seeing, breakfast while they watch and myriad other forms of pampering.
The price depends on what the client wants to do but last year, for instance, one customer dished out 4,000 euros a day, Ollo said.
In general the service costs about 700 euros to 1,000 euros a day. It was particularly popular among people from the US, Russia and France.
“They are clients with lots of buying power. In the last few years, fewer have come but the ones that do spend more,” he said.
Now, however, with demand slumping, the company has devised a scaled-down package with a hotel room and a separate balcony along the route for 155 euros a day.
The hotel occupancy rate is expected to be about 90 percent, similar to last year, but for the first time in years rooms are going for as little as 90 euros a night, especially on the city outskirts, said Nacho Calvo of the Navarra Restaurant and Hotel Association.
“Rates have come down a lot and the weakness of the dollar against the euro is taking its toll on tourism,” he said.
Pamplona has around 4,000 hotel rooms, about a third of which fill up with foreigners flocking to get a taste of the festival.
At Casino Eslava, a famed bar near a hostel where US writer Ernest Hemingway often stayed when he visited San Fermin, co-owner Ricardo Ubanell said things have been slow since last year and he expects his cash register to take another hit.
“Our expectations are lower because of the crisis, no doubt about it,” he said.
Nonetheless, he has hired nine extra waiters to handle the influx of partiers and ordered just as much alcohol as previous years, although other outlets are scaling back in anticipation of leaner spending.
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