Golf wants to stop being considered as “the ugly duckling” of the Andalusian economy and to value its contribution to the economic and tourist development of the region. This was stated by Carlos Pitarch, president of the Commercial Committee of the Andalusian Federation of Golf Courses at a round table with representatives of other sectors demanding water.
The statements were made during the presentation of the report “Diagnosis of water needs in Andalusia”, prepared by the Confederation of Businessmen of Southern Spain (CESUR).
To defend his thesis, Carlos Pitarch has used numerous data that support the economic role of golf as well as its almost zero carbon footprint and minimal consumption of conventional water.
Specifically, the executive has brought up that, compared to the million long hectares of agricultural irrigated land in Andalusia, golf only irrigates 3,500, of which 75% is irrigated with recycled water while in the rest of the area where it is not used is because these fields do not have access to it.
In this sense, he congratulated the Administration for its contribution at the level of channeling quality recycled water for irrigation of golf courses and called for continued investment to further increase the efficiency and sustainability of the sector.
“All courses with access to recycled water make use of it, so the total sustainability of the sector depends on continuing with these pipelines. However, golf courses are SMEs, which do not have the capacity to make these investments on their own. When the Public Administration has made them in the past, it has contributed to generate an Industry that today employs tens of thousands of Andalusians, and that Industry during these last years has returned to the Andalusian society, and to the public coffers, that investment multiplied by a hundred times”, Carlos Pitarch said.
The representative of the Andalusian Golf Courses Federation stressed that the Golf Tourism Industry goes beyond the simple activity of the golf courses, since, although the 100 golf courses in Andalusia have a turnover of around 200 million euros per year, they produce a total direct income of 2,200 million, which benefits a multitude of companies and workers related to accommodation, catering, leisure, commerce, transport, etc.
Therefore, it is estimated that the overall impact on the Andalusian economy – adding the indirect impact to the direct income – is equivalent to 3% of the region’s gross domestic product.
“The data show that the golf course sector in Andalusia is made up of a hundred SMEs, not always profitable, which have generated an economic ecosystem far superior to the turnover of these one hundred facilities, and which benefits a very large part of Andalusian society. And all this is achieved with minimal water consumption in global terms. When we talk about the destination of our water, there is no industry that generates more employment, more income and more distributed than golf”, said Carlos Pitarch.
“Our goal is also to become a zero consumer of conventional water, but to do that we need access to reclaimed water for all our facilities. There is no more sustainable activity than converting a waste from which there is a surplus into an asset through water regeneration, and therefore raw material for a tourism industry. It is golf that achieves this in our region,” concluded Carlos Pitarch.
Andalusia is the region of Spain with the largest number of golf courses, which, according to a recent study conducted by IE for the Spanish Association of Golf Courses and the Royal Spanish Golf Federation, have a turnover of 27.9% of the national total (216.79 million euros) and generate more than 52,000 jobs annually after adding those produced directly by the golf courses (4,452) and those corresponding to golf tourism, which account for a total of 47,646 jobs, direct, indirect and induced.
Due to its importance as an economic engine for the region and to the fact that water consumption by golf courses translates into greater wealth and employment for the economy as a whole, the speaker has advocated that taxation should be reduced to allow the sector to remain profitable in these times of great economic difficulties in which Andalusian golf is seriously affected by the absence of tourist arrivals to the region.
“We have to put the water where it generates more employment,” said Pitarch, who also criticized the fact that in times of crisis the increase in the tax burden is used to balance the public accounts in charge of the private sector, making it even more difficult for them to get out of the crisis, when it should be the other way around, “because what we are talking about is helping economic recovery. Now there is a lot of talk about public aid to companies in general, and there is no greater help than to reduce the tax burden by applying the reduced VAT of 10% to the golf tourism industry, to subsidize the IBI in years without income, and to allow greater economic growth, which will lead to more revenue for the public sector in the future”.
To recapitulate, Carlos Pitarch has presented as the main claims of the golf sector in Andalusia greater investment in infrastructure, access to recycled water of good quality and at a good price and to begin to consider golf for what it is: an industry that attracts more than six hundred thousand tourists to Andalusia each year, an economic engine that generates quality employment and the most profitable crop in the entire region.
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