The businessman and director of Blue Marketing Events, a concessionaire company of Magma Art & Congresses (Costa Adeje), Jose Chiyahexplained yesterday the reasons that, in his opinion, have led to the situation of paralysis and decay that this emblematic building suffers, which does not celebrate any event of national or international importance since 2015.
Chiyah wanted to respond to the entire MICE segment (business, incentive, corporate and conference travel agencies), companies and institutions that yesterday expressed, through this newspaper, their complaints about what they consider the ineffectiveness of this palace inaugurated in 2005 by the Kings and a true architectural gem.
With documents that guarantee the management company up to 227,000 euros per year if it presents audited losses, Chiyah assured that he has them “every year” and that the Government of the Canary Islands has not paid him what he claims since 2019 “due to differences between the data audited that we have presented.” In any case, he denies that there was any negligence on his part in promoting the space to obtain, in return, compensation with public funds.
120,000 euros received due to the pandemic
The Executive Department of Tourism provided DIARIO DE AVISOS with the figures between 2015 and 2018, ensuring that no compensation had been paid at that time. However, it did report that in 2020 120,000 euros were paid for the closure of the facilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He did not provide more information about what happened between 2019 and 2022. In that period, it is Chiyah who sheds light by defending that he has presented balances that reflect losses for which he believes he should be compensated.
In the opinion of this businessman, the first problem is the state of the Magma. It was given to him as a concession in 2014 and he assures that it was delivered to him “totally destroyed and they have not fixed it. “We are with that slab on top,” he adds. “This would have to be right from the beginning – he defends – and all the parties, Canarian Coalition or the PSOE, get rid of the dead.” It should be noted that the director of Blue Marketing Events was a CC councilor in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Regarding the annual activity of the venue, he admits that “we survive with minor events, such as exhibitions, dinners or a show.” Around 20 or 25 a year, according to the calculations offered. “And, if more conferences are not held, it is because there is no availability in the hotels,” he says.
“The budgets are not specified”
“We are having losses and we do not have conferences. The number of budgets we make each year is endless, more than a hundred, but then they are not made because there are no hotels. “We barely receive three or four budgets each year from agencies in the MICE segment,” he asserts, adding that “don’t say that we function poorly because the problem is that there are no beds.”
The companies dedicated to this segment in the Canary Islands, however, indicate the opposite and assure that the problems of overpricing and the poor condition of the building are what ruin the holding of congresses in this building in the south of Tenerife.
Chiyah believes that there has been a significant loss, mainly of institutions, to Magma. “I do not know why. There is a tremendous steplessness. Institutions are our main competence. In Magma you have to pay and you don’t like that,” she defends.
However, he is willing to “talk to the sector and look for common solutions. The only ones who are being left out of the party are us,” he says.
How can there be any incentive to operating these premises correctly when they are guaranteed recompense for failure.