In the face of a “tough” outbound market, members of Spain’s agency association, ASEPROCE, will undergo a third party assessment this autumn as it attempts to improve quality standards in the industry.
A new regulation policy will also be rolled out by the end of the year and a campaign launched in February 2014 to promote the new professionalisation across all agent operations in Spain.
“The Spanish market is not regulated so we think that quality has to be the new change,” ASEPROCE president Juan Manuel Elizalde told The PIE News.
“Quality has to be the new change”
“We have to get rid of the non-professional operators and send the public the image that this is a professional activity and they have to send their children to professional people.”
According to Elizalde, many operators are hurting the market by offering limited course options and not placing students in the correct programme. Some agents are also operating illegally and not paying taxes resulting in high risks for students who won’t have payment assurance systems in place.
“It’s unfair because they’re not paying taxes in most of the cases so the price can be lower than ours. We are paying taxes and we have employees and we’re doing it properly,” said Elizalde. “There are many of these individuals not moving big numbers but small numbers added to small numbers add up to big numbers.
“The government is not doing anything about the unfair competition or non-professional operators, so we have to do something about it,” he added.
Founded in 1987, ASEPROCE members conduct 70% of all agent business in Spain. Earlier this year, the organisation’s 70 member agencies voted to add additional fees to established membership costs in order to have third party Lloyd’s Register carry out a regulation spot check. Members who do not pass will be asked to leave the association says Elizalde.
“It’s exciting. I think it’s good for schools and it’s good for us but it’s especially good for clients,” he added.
Spain’s no-growth economy has made the market “tough” for agents he said. This year the government also slashed the popular Becas programme that supported many students to study at foreign institutions.
“The government is not doing anything about the unfair competition or non-professional operators, so we have to do something about it”
Despite economic conditions, last year ASEPROCE members sent 100,000 students abroad with outbound numbers on the rise particularly for full-year courses for 12-18 year olds.
The demand for courses taught in English is driving growth in the market. Of the 70,000 youth send abroad last year over 95% of parents chose to send their children to anglophone countries. The United States attracted 80% of business, Ireland 14% and the UK 6%.
“English is important for us and unfortunately the education system in Spain, though they are trying, they’re still not getting very high results in learning English so they need us. Even if they are good, to travel abroad they need us,” said Elizalde.
French and German courses are also popular with students and have shown small amounts of growth recently due to the economic situation in Spain.
