James Warren
AFTER more than 50 years of providing thrills and laughter on Span’s Costa del Sol, Tivoli World is not expected to reopen this summer as the resort battles crippling debt.
Workers took to the streets of Benalmadena last Friday to display their anger at the potential closure, many of which had ben with the company for over 15 years.
Around 200 staff and supporters, adorned with banners reading ‘Tivoli World, No Al Cierre’ demonstrated outside the park to show their dismay at its treatment of its long standing staff.
“We do not understand what they want, we are suffering after a pandemic and they are playing with us,” said one worker to local news site Malaga Hoy.
The park closed its doors last November and placed its entire workforce on ERTE, and has been working hard over the winter period to decide the financial profitability of reopening for summer 2021.
According to the parks PR spokesman Jose Luis Guzman, on paper the park had a fantastic 2020 season despite the pandemic.
Around 15,000 under-12s visited the park last summer, resulting in a 50% turnover over 2019.
However the numbers go little way to affect the 11.2 million of debt that the park currently owes.
Of this, 4.7 million is owed in social security, with 4.7 in taxes and 387,000 to the Benalmadena council, as well as various private debts to investors.
Last month, the park received support from the Mayor of Benalmadena Victor Navas who enlisted the help of the University of Malaga to help find investors to save it from demolition.
But so far, their efforts have proved fruitless, a fact that appears to be the final nail in the coffin for Tivoli World according to the park’s lawyer Juan Antonio Sánchez.
“The park must assume its debt to its investors, the council and its 160 staff,” he said.
Tivoli Group filed for bankruptcy last August after more than a decade of infighting between the park’s former and current owners.
Bitter court battles between the International Company of Parks and Attractions (Cipasa), owned by Corodoban Rafael Gomez, and the real estate group Tremon have led to the debts piling up as neither party assumes responsibility for the payment.
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