How is the global crisis impacting the sector in Argentina?
-In our activity what were seeing is mostly a media campaign orchestrated by companies, which are using the excuse of the crisis to deny the wage increase requested. While its true that in 2009 we wont see the same level of activity we saw in previous years, its also true that from 2003 to 2008 the sector accumulated very high earnings. During this period they gathered a large enough cushion, or reserve, to put them in a position to grant us the raise were demanding. Besides, even though there have been cancellations they havent even affected 30 percent of all reservations, and a hotel with 50 percent occupancy has a good budget surplus. Any five-star hotel or hotel with more than 100 rooms that has 30 percent of its rooms filled is not losing money. We have experience in that sense because as a union we manage four hotels and we know what the costs involved in running each hotel are. Theyve been operating since 2006 with an average 90 percent yearly occupancy, so we cant accept the co
