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AP News: Camino pilgrims help rural Spain’s emptying villages survive

peregrino_tom

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gns said:
Whilst the focus is on the Camino Frances it is another good reason for considering less travelled Caminos where communities are struggling to survive as well.
Click to expand...
I have seen a huge difference in the revitalization of towns especially along the Meseta between when I first walked and now. Last October I walked the VDLP and will continue to walk less traveled caminos in the future. I can say that in many towns (my experience only) there seemed to be little or no outreach or caring about pilgrims outside of albergues. Most kitchens were still closed due to Covid so I had to eat out alot more than I normally would and there were many times I could not eat dinner until 9 or 930. I never felt like people were "glad" to see a pilgrim. It is not to say many people were not nice or friendly it is more to say that their businesses or their lives depended at all on the pilgrims that came in here or there. It is just my impression and it is not to discourage anyone from walking the VDLP. It is a unique challenge and so different than well traveled caminos with good infrastructure.
 
I will go to booking.com only to see if there are additional choices a places to stay especially on less traveled routes. If there are and I want to stay there I call the albergue or hostel myself and book. 15% is a big commission. It hurts the owners alot more than the corporation on which way you book.
 

Also my approach.
On the Vasco Interior I noticed that a certain hostal would set us back 65 € through a bookingsite while when I called them directly it was 48 €!

Do not want to go into politics here but if you want you can do an internetsearch for bookingdotcom + tax evasion + care for employees.
 
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I've never met Giovanna but I know she taught with my brother at the University of Minnesota and has walked the Camino many times.
 
The effect of the growth in numbers along the narrow strip of the Camino Frances is astounding. For me Foncebadon is the most extraordinary example. Many of us will remember it as an iconic ghost town. In the year of my first Camino there was one inhabitant and every building apart from her home was abandoned and decaying. Today Gronze lists 10 hostals and albergues in that one tiny village. Never fails to astonish me.
 
If bookingdotcom and others have gained so much market share so fast on the Caminos, it is because the thousands of albergues, pensions, hostals etc have not grasped the needs of the peregrinos. This goes along with the stubborn and longtime refusal to accept more convenient forms of payment than cash. Hardly any other "business" would have lent itself better to organizing a mutual Peregrino reservation system than the Camino with its particular "customer"-base. Imho even now it would be possible to fend off the big booking sites using an innovative, low-cost system using mobile communication for reservation and payment focussed on peregrinos. There is enough business and all it would need is that the actors along the Caminos organize themselves.
 
More 2024 Camino Guides available
The 2024 Camino guides will be coming out little by little. Here is a collection of the ones that are out so far.
And there is "off-the-shelf" software available that would make the job easier, and electronic payment services. OK entrepreneurs and techies on this forum, let's do it.
 
Luther said:
I've never met Giovanna but I know she taught with my brother at the University of Minnesota and has walked the Camino many times.
Click to expand...
Luther thanks for this background. And I just knew we had a caminophile here!
I love the way the piece incorporates so many different voices from along the camino. I bet there's a longer, richer piece out there that existed before the sub-editors got involved..
 
A lot of businesses use booking.com but don’t commit all their rooms. Cost aside, if a hotel is listed as full in booking.com it is still worth calling them direct.
 
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