‘Pilot’ tourist destination proposal to test travel to Spain’s holiday island Mallorca before coronavirus vaccine found

THE AHPP Playa de Palma hotel business association has put forward the proposal of the Mallorca capital’s beaches acting as a ‘pilot’ holiday destination for the island once the coronavirus lockdown de-escalation allows.

The association says the idea would be “to test how it would be start to travel” before such time as there is a vaccination against Covid-19.

The hoteliers point out that the Balearic Islands have had one of the lowest rates of Covid-19 infections in Spain, making it a good place to see what tourism would be like in what will be in very different circumstances to before the start of the pandemic.

The association reports that it is currently preparing and coordinating with tourism companies, airline and German airlines the reactivation of the beach zone.

Germany is the Playa de Palma’s main tourist market, accounting for some 60 per cent of visitors.

The hoteliers cite a number of factors which they maintain make the island capital’s coast a good place to act as a pilot destination: it is Mallorca’s closest resort to the airport and has five kilometres of beaches, which would allow social distancing between beachgoers. It also has long, wide promenades and parks.

These are all “indispensable conditions to be able to practise the safety recommendations which the health authorities recommend so there are not virus contagions,” the association stated.

“We have to send out signals that we have to get going and we know how to do it in the face of the German authorities’ pretension of prudence and of limiting the trips of their compatriots to southern Europe,” commented association Vice-President Jose Antonio Fernandez de Alarcon.

The vice-president believes “the key” is coordination between the destination and German tourism sector companies “which have received liquidity but which need to get going.

“Why don’t we test what it would be like to travel, until the world globally recovers after the vaccination,” he asks.

Fernandez de Alarcon is convinced the sector can be reactivated “sooner rather than later,” but “in coordination with the health authorities and with the governments.”