Being aware that tourism is the first national industry of our country, with a contribution to the gross national product close to 12%, and taking into account its importance in our global economy, the following thinking was made: it is necessary to create an institution as ITH.

The idea comes from the need to change the present hotel business model in our country: the successful patterns and factors that have worked for our context in the past times; that is; low salaries, extraordinary natural resources and close locations from the main tourist issuing countries, amongst others, are no longer competitive. The increase of cost prices results in a quality drop if we want to keep our profitability.

The accommodation facilities in Spain are often very old (older that 20 years). It is true that in the last ten years, big efforts have been made in order to reform the existing hotel infrastructures, though the effort has to continue. 95% of our hotel enterprises are small and medium family businesses, which lack the financial resources to undertake this modernization, but the situation is so, that if they do nothing, to keep up with the market forces, they will disappear. This will bring about a new illegal market, of lower quality without guaranties and an increase in unemployment rates.

In order to help and support the hotel sector in our country, the ITH is born…. with one single thing in mind: to be very effective and practical.