On Tuesday, 4 February 2014, Dídac García Carreté, the Director of European Affairs for the Spanish Hotel Confederation (CEHAT) and the Director of the European Hospitality Foundation (EHF), gave the lecture «The European Adventure» as part of the continuing education lecture series organized by the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences.
In his lecture, García Carreté discussed his professional career from its beginnings to becoming the Director of European Affairs for the Spanish Hotel Confederation (CEHAT) and the Director of the European Hospitality Foundation (EHF), a lobbying group that works in the interests of the Spanish hotel and tourism industry.
He spoke specifically about the objective of the lobbying group. “We try to change the laws while they’re still being debated in Brussels”, he explained. There are currently between 15,000 and 20,000 lobbyists working in Brussels and 80% of the legislation impacting the EU Member States originates there.
One of García Carreté’s many responsibilities includes talking to employers’ associations in the hotel industry and informing them of what the future holds. The first time he talked to this group, he told them that smoking in bars and hotels would be banned. “They all laughed”, he said. But a few years later, some of those who were in attendance told him that they had lost a lot of money for not listening to him.
