The holidays, which are upon us, often wreak havoc on the economies of what used to be known as the middle class. The credit card tends to overheat, and the risk of exceeding the limit can materialize at the most inopportune moment, leaving the holder without resources and returning to pariah status. On these occasions, the economic blockade seems to have nothing to envy the politician, who is now worrying us. And, even if you find a way to get out of the trance, when you return from summer vacation, you will inevitably have to do with less, as in the January hike.
Travel, hotels, restaurants and other vacation amenities drive spending. The gift of life is not cheap, we already know that. But when one abandons himself in his arms, he immediately forgets and spends more liberally. The summer wastes are therefore, in the first place, attributable to those who practice them. But, as will be seen below, not only them. Sometimes the tourism industry also collaborates.
A few weeks ago, while searching the Internet for Balearic yacht charter companies to rent a boat, I noticed that the traditional division of the season into low, medium and high, with the corresponding rate escalation, had widened, creating a concept top: the peak season. In other words, a new period, at the peak of the holiday period, in which the price of rents reached heights never seen before. So that you understand me: the amount of money that a certain agency was asking for the chosen boat was four times higher than what I paid a short time before on an island on the west coast of Sicily for another of the same type, with the same length and a engine with the same horses. I repeat: four more times.
What was this increase in response to? To the argument that maybe, in return, better benefits were offered? To an exclusive offer of secret and unexplored natural corners in which to avoid the nautical massification? Guaranteed to enjoy fully satisfactory temperatures, sun, winds and waves? Well no The increase did not respond to any of this, but to the law of supply and demand that governs our economy. Or, as someone more prosaic would say, a rampant of greed. Certainly, to run a rental company with such a distinguished style you don't need to have gone to a business school – which, let's just say in passing, aren't cheap either, although at least you have to consider the tuition as an investment. It is enough to let yourself be drawn in by the extractive vocation.
"Make August" is an old expression. So old, that Cervantes already used it in La gitanilla. He was referring to the joys of the month when the cereal was harvested, when the sweat of months of hard agricultural work was already shining in the barn transformed into the promise of a winter in which there was no shortage of bread. Over time, the meaning of this saying evolved, and it was applied to those who profited by taking advantage of an ideal situation. In this way, the phrase moved away from the idea of a fair reward to get closer to that of pelotazo. They are things of progress.
They can tell me that the novelty is not such. That for years now the price of shrimp has been going up and up as August progresses, doubling or tripling, and that something similar happens with the price of some hotel rooms or other services tourist The novelty lies in the adoption and, therefore, the consolidation in the tourism sector of this new concept - which comes from the field of logistics -, which makes it possible to obtain more money for it. If the example spreads, we have drunk oil.
- Waiter, are you charging me 30 euros for a sea bass that cost me 22 last week?
– Sir, keep in mind that we are in the middle of peak season.
What will come now? Who knows. Maybe the super peak season. Which will then be subdivided into the Alps week and the Himalayas week, the latter crowned by the Everest day... Those of the middle class – others, not even that – are therefore left with two options: either contain the impulses or or extend the credit limit of the cards. For now, in the absence of higher altitudes, the peak season is approaching. Which, as its name suggests, will come out in a pinch.
