Shorouk Express
Spain’s Institute for Seniors and Social Services, along with the country’s Social Security system, are considering allowing Spaniards to enjoy subsided holidays outside of Spain through the Imserso scheme, as well as offering foreign retirees the chance to do the same but in Spain.
According to leading Spanish newspaper ABC, the government is even at the stage of planning a pilot test for the scheme.
Spain’s Imserso scheme offers subsidised trips to Spanish pensioners in order to help them improve their quality of life and health, as well as to reduce their dependence on others.
The programme is also meant to incentivise employment and economic activity in Spain, hoping to reduce the problem of temporary work in Spain’s tourism sector during low season.
Those over 65 with a Spanish pension can enjoy holidays in different locations across the country. The price depends on the duration (typically between seven and nine nights), and the destination. It varies between approximately €212 to €405 and includes accommodation, food and transport.
Imserso: What is Spain’s cheap holiday scheme for pensioners?
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But the proposal presented by Imserso’s general director of María Teresa Sancho at the recent meeting of the CEOE Tourism Business Council has outraged both hoteliers and travel agencies.
They believe that this type of initiative, especially that of allowing foreigners who don’t reside in Spain or receive a pension here, would only result in lower profits.
“There is a significant risk that these foreigners who are coming at a market price or higher will tell us, ‘Hey, if you are accepting Germans or French or Portuguese at this price, you have to accept the rest of my clients at the same price too'” sources from the council said.
Regarding the prospect of offering subsidised trips abroad for Spaniards, Spain’s CEOE Tourism Business Council also argued that: “At that price it is impossible to find places outside of Spain, it is absolutely unfeasible”.
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During the last edition of the international tourism fair FITUR in Madrid in January 2025, Sancho said that she wanted to first focus on neighbouring countries first such as France and Portugal. “It is one more incentive and we are open to all types of initiatives,” she said.
Currently the Imserso scheme is not even available to foreign residents in Spain unless they are receiving a Spanish public pension, they received unemployment benefits aged 60 or older, they are receiving a widow’s or widower’s pension or they paid into Spain’s Social Security System aged 65 or older.
This isn’t the first time that Spain has suggested opening up by the scheme to European pensioners too, they also mentioned this back in 2022.
At the time Spain’s Secretary of State for Tourism Fernando Valdés said “Seniors constitute 21 percent of the total population of the European Union and spend 5.6 percent of their income on tourism”, adding that Imserso could help to address the matter of seasonality for tourism-dependant economies in Europe. Spain’s then Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto also supported the idea.
However, Spain’s current Tourism Minister Jordi Hereu has to deal with a different set of circumstances.
Despite numerous anti-mass tourism protests in Spain in 2024, there were record numbers of international holidaymakers.
Therefore, the prospect of encouraging even more foreign tourists to come to Spain on cheap package holidays isn’t likely to be well received by the general population.
