The Balearic government has presented measures to tackle the crisis caused by the collapse of Thomas Cook. One of these, announced on Thursday evening, will be the return of tourist tax paid by Thomas Cook clients to hoteliers for July, August and September. In effect, this should mean that hotels simply keep tourist tax payments made by these clients. This measure will not apply to hotels that were under Thomas Cook's direct management.
The tourism minister Iago Negueruela says that there is no plan for a suspension of the tourist tax.
A further measure is that the government is to provide a line of extraordinary credit with which it will pay Thomas Cook employees affected by the collapse of the tour operator 500 euros per month for a period of four months.
These payments will be for cases of immediate need where employees are unable to get any benefit or other employment. The government refers to these employees being "prisoners" of the "complex" insolvency process. At present, only the main Thomas Cook company, with its over 700 employees has filed for insolvency. There are four others which are companies for the different hotel brands; these are in a state of pre-insolvency, meaning that they have room to try and negotiate with creditors and to bring in new financing as a means of staving off filing for insolvency.