The year 1974 hand ended with a plethora of worries for the hoteliers of Calella (Maresme) and its zone of influence, which had just experienced a “black summer”. The serious situation in the United Kingdom resulting from the energy crisis caused many British agencies to cancel a large number of flights and hotel bookings. The rise is energy prices also caused bankruptcies in important travel wholesalers. In addition, the holding of the 1974 Football World Cup in Germany, a country which had a considerable weight in Calella’s tourism trade caused an alteration of this market.




During the month of March, 1975, the industrialists Ramon Bagó, Josep Janer and Cristóbal Villegas discussed the possibility of pooling their efforts to form a purchasing cooperative, but at the same time with the aim of improving the operation, commercialisation and profitability of their establishments. In this way they adopted the cooperative formulation, testifying to their intention to maintain humanised commercial relations.

On 30th December 1975 a meeting was called of all the hotel and café owners and anyone else in Calella interested in forming part of the new cooperative, the future SERHS. This was the origin of Serveis Mancomunats d’Hostaleria i Similars Societat Cooperativa (SERHS SCOOP), which initially had 17 partners and a capital of 850,000 pesetas (5,108 of the current euros).

The spirit of openness made the organisation grow and diversify: hotels, restaurants, bars, collectives such as hospitals, schools and geriatric centres gradually made up the bulk of SERHS, and also configured its territorial implantation along the Catalan coast. This cooperative became the nucleus of Grup SERHS, a corporation composed today of 71 investee companies and 2 associated firms, which has received numerous acknowledgements lie the Placa d’Honor del Turisme de Catalunya in 2001, and in August 2003, in a cabinet meeting chaired by His Majesty the King of Spain, the Placa al Mèrit Turístic in the Gold category, and in 2005 the Príncipe Felipe award for Tourist Business Excellence, which honour us and which we really thank.