• In less than 24 hours, Germany places all of Spain in a risk zone for Covid

  • Tourism France qualifies its veto to Spain and assures that to travel the fundamental thing is to be vaccinated

  • Reyes Maroto "You have to coordinate and not wake up alarms" for images that are an "exception"

The Spanish tourism sector receives one of lime and another of sand as far as foreign tourism is concerned. If yesterday the French Minister of Foreign Affairs,

Yves Le Drian

, calmed the spirits by encouraging travel to Spain as long as it is vaccinated and the United Kingdom announced that it

would allow quarantines to be imposed on its vaccinated citizens

upon returning from their holidays in our country, Germany included yesterday Spain on the Covid risk list prepared by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) of virology.

This sway of news "does not attract international tourism," says

Emilio Gallego

, Secretary General of Hospitality of Spain.

Between June and September of last year,

only 5 million foreigners came to Spain on vacation

, of which 30% were German, 15% British and 12% French, according to data from Frontur of the INE.

A figure far removed from the almost 29 million tourists who visited the country in 2019, but which preserves the arrival patterns of foreigners from pre-pandemic summers.

This year, the expectations are not much better.

The government estimates that

some 40 million foreign tourists will come to Spain in 2021

, although it does not clarify how many will be in summer.

Given the alarms about the advance of the Delta variant and in order to save the summer season, the

Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation

(CEHAT), asks to modify the parameters that are currently being taken into account to assess the incidence of the pandemic , underlining that a

600% decrease in

income

is currently observed

for each case of covid-19 diagnosed.

An analysis already collected in a press conference held yesterday with her French counterpart, the Spanish Foreign Minister,

Arancha González Laya

stressed that "we are not in the same situation as previous waves."

He has also stressed that currently "the incidence of covid does not translate into hospitalizations" or "more citizens in intensive care."

Faced with this new situation, Laya has prescribed "prudence, vaccination and vaccination certificate, in that order."

This vision is also shared by the tourism sector.

"The vaccination cards have to be useful for something," Emilio Gallego urged.

Also the Minister of Tourism,

Reyes Maroto

has asked for prudence and insisted that "we are a safe destination" that "leads vaccinations in Europe", so that "we cannot measure the epidemiological situation only by the accumulated incidence".

The shortfall in foreign arrivals is of particular concern to the beer sector. "We are concerned that, in the future, the foreign tourist who is going to try another place this summer will not return to Spain", warns

Jacobo Olalla

, general director of Cerveceros de España. According to Olalla, international tourists consume "between 25% and 30% of the beer consumed in the country." Olalla places special emphasis on the English market, since "its consumption is three times that of the Spanish themselves." According to their calculations by Cerveceros de España, "the fact that foreign tourists do not come" could have "quite an impact" on the Spanish economy because Spain produces "88% of the beer consumed here."

At the moment, the forecasts for foreign flights remain at 58% of the flights operated in 2019, according to the Spanish

Airline Association

(ALA), led by

Javier Gándara

. In addition, the association claims to have detected a quantitative change in flights compared to the pre-pandemic period, producing an increase in domestic or domestic flights, to the detriment of flights from the United Kingdom.

This amalgamation of circumstances has led to lower expectations of the beer sector in foreign tourism, and to direct its gaze towards the national one. "The new strain and its management make us fear that the recovery of foreign tourism will not be what it was and that we will focus more on domestic tourism," says Olalla. A "valuable" tourist despite the fact that, as the businessman acknowledges, "he does not have the added value that foreigners have," says Jacobo Olalla.

One consequence of focusing the summer season on national tourism is that "asymmetries" will occur, warns Gallego.

This is because "some destinations will be able to experience a relatively normal summer, such as the north, because they are destinations where national tourism weighs heavily. But on the islands and the Costa del Sol a strange situation will be experienced" .

Last summer, residents in Spain made more than 101 million trips to other autonomous communities, 47% fewer trips in 2019. The most visited autonomous communities were Andalusia, Catalonia and the Valencian Community, accounting for 43% of total trips carried out by residents within Spain and with a total expenditure of 8 billion euros.

To this day, the sector remains in suspense before the tail of the pandemic, but continues "optimistic" feeling that "the situation is getting better", reflects Emilio Gallego.

"We only ask that no more stones be put in the way."

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Know more

  • Spain

  • Arancha González Laya

  • tourism

  • economy

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