State-Run Spanish Hotels Mix History With Theater : Tourism: Paradores chain competes with beach facilities by offering quality and traditional food at revamped inland monasteries and castles.

It may be the newest hotel in this picturesque Castillian town, but its carved stone facade is a clear giveaway that the inn wasn’t built yesterday.

Inside, medieval church music plays softly as actors dressed as monks swing incense burners through the dining room, where dishes are based on recipes used 400 years before this 16th-Century convent was transformed into a state-run Paradores hotel.

The unconventional mix of history and theater is, however, anything but unusual for the 84-hotel Paradores chain, which takes its name from the inns that once dotted old Spain. The chain’s properties include hotels in centuries-old monasteries, castles and palaces.

Officials believe the romance of the past can draw customers despite the appeal of the ultra-modern beachfront complexes that have helped make tourism Spain’s top foreign exchange earner.

The Paradores chain is emphasizing history, charm, nature and quality instead of sun and fun bargains, a strategy meant to lure middle-class visitors to a more sophisticated and higher-budget tourism.

In Cuenca, San Pablo Convent Parador manager Juan Carlos Morales entertains guests with legends and history of the building and the central Spanish town. Similar information is being gathered for each parador in the chain.

The idea of focusing on cultural and nature-oriented activities and upscale tourism goes back to the chain’s roots. The first parador, opened in 1928 in the Gredos mountains north of Madrid, was designed for visitors interested in the upper-crust sport of hunting.

With hotels averaging 40 to 50 rooms, the chain obviously can’t--and doesn’t want to--chase a mass market.

“Our client market is an upper-middle segment in terms of sensibility, not economics,” Paradores head Eduardo Moreno said. “I think our price (about $100 a night for a double room) is relatively competitive.”

Spain is betting it can attract inland some of the 60% of foreign visitors who now head straight for the beach.

A lot is riding on the gamble. Tourism is estimated to account for almost 19% of Spain’s gross domestic product. It’s also a labor-intensive industry in a country where the 23% unemployment rate is the highest in the 15-member European Union.

Paradores does run some modern--and undistinguished--beach and highway properties but is selling them to strengthen its image as a purveyor of restored national treasures.

Foreigners account for about half the guests at the Paradores, and a well-cared-for historical atmosphere is a strong selling point with many of them, Moreno said. Germans, British and French top the list of foreign visitors.

An old European castle does it every time--castles turned hotels also do well in Ireland and Britain--because customers want to stay in a room where kings or other historical figures have slept, Moreno said.

New American and Japanese visitors are particularly interested in this new style of Spanish tourism.

They are the main target of joint marketing plans agreed to in January between Paradores and the Portuguese Pousadas group, Europe’s only other state-run historical hotel chain.

In addition to linking their reservations systems, the companies plan to offer such joint packages as tours of castles or historic cities.

Paradores restaurants--which have always emphasized regional cooking and account for half the chain’s income--are getting special attention, with staff in Madrid dedicated to researching traditional recipes.

When the chain began at the dawn of automobile travel, hotels were set up a day’s drive from each other in areas not deemed profitable by private industry. Many of the modern properties were built in the 1960s and ‘70s when foreigners first began to flock to Spain and its beaches.

Work is scheduled to begin this year on three new Paradores hotels in Santa Cruz de las Palmas in the Canary Islands, Plasencia in western Spain and Cangas de Onis in Asturias, site of a major cheese market.

The idea appears to be spreading. Several countries, including Syria and Russia, have approached Paradores about running similar historic hotel chains.