Tourists are welcome in Portugal as authorities guarantee minimal health controls as the country opens to holidaymakers

Tourists are welcome in Portugal as authorities guarantee minimal health controls as the country opens to holidaymakers.

PORTUGAL has announced that ‘Tourists are welcome’ with no quarantine enforcement on arrival as authorities guarantee that visitors from overseas will face ‘minimal health controls’ as the country reopens.
Across Europe, countries are reopening their borders leaving many wondering whether a Mediterranean summer break is still a possibility this year.
Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain have all announced they will be opening to overseas travellers in June or July. However, Cyprus has said it will only admit visitors from a reduced list of countries, to begin with.
But the good news is that Portugal is open and ‘tourists are welcome,’ according to the country’s foreign minister Augusto Santos Silva in an interview with the newspaper Observador. The country’s land border with Spain will stay closed until June 15, but those arriving at airports will not be quarantined and will face only ‘minimal health controls.’
The country was lucky enough to have a relatively Coronavirus free spring which led to cafes and restaurants being able to reopen in May. Hotels and other accommodation are set to follow suit from June 1, with tourism boards awarding a new ‘Clean & Safe’ shield to hotels and restaurants who have taken the time to implement new hygiene measures.
The beautiful beaches will reopen on June 6, and a new mobile phone app will monitor the capacity to enforce distance between sunbathers.
Flights to Portugal’s three major airports have already started and more airlines are returning to regular routes as soon as possible. Flights will be permitted from any country in the Schengen zone except Italy and Spain, plus the UK, USA, Canada, Brazil. British holidaymakers may be able to skip quarantine measures if they are returning home from Portugal if the ‘air bridge’ that the UK and Portuguese governments are in talks to establish goes ahead.