By Alex Trelinski • Published: 29 Apr 2020 • 16:57
BRITISH holidaymakers looking for a quick return date to visit the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca in Spain are likely to be disappointed, despite major plans being announced to ease the Spanish lockdown.
A government official said today (April 29) that the return of “Foreign tourism is the hardest part to manage.
“We need to carefully look at what has happened to those countries where the coronavirus struck early on in Asia. They reopened their borders and then the Covid-19 cases started to rise again.”
It’s bad news for UK travellers who boost the Spanish economy significantly as the country places so much significance on international visitors.
The unnamed Madrid official said that decisions on reopening borders would have to be realistically taken at a European Union level.
It also involves countries like Spain and France who are part of the so-called Schengen area, where there are no border controls.
It appears that the priority in Spain is to get some form of domestic tourism going again, in what has been described as a “new-normal” post-pandemic era from the end of June.
Based on developments in other European countries and how they are adopting longer strategies of keeping contagion down until the autumn, there’s little realistic hope for the time being of an imminent return to foreign visitors coming to Spain.
That means the pain continuing for all facets of the country’s tourism and hospitality sectors, as well as for the air carriers who are facing increasing financial problems, as their fleets largely remain grounded around the continent.
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