Tourism in Europe: the slow road to recovery
Audio 03:54
A view of the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, surrounded by tourists, July 4, 2019 © / Regis Duvignau / REUTERS
By: Aabla Jounaïdi Follow
8 mins
While the vaccination campaigns in Europe are accelerating, the tourism sector regains hope and finally plans to exit the tunnel.
The European authorities are announcing for June the implementation of its digital green certificate to facilitate non-essential travel.
But the recovery will certainly be very slow for a sector that has come a long way.
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2020, the year of lockdowns and travel restrictions will go down in the annals of the industry as the worst of all.
In Europe, the world's leading destination for tourists, professionals have suffered particularly.
Last year, they had to contend with a 64% drop in income from the previous year.
And 3.6 million fewer jobs for businesses, often small and medium-sized businesses.
France only welcomed a third of the usual 90 million foreign visitors last year.
For Spain and Italy, two other flagship destinations and fragile economies, the losses amounted to more than 70 billion euros.
From now on, for the European States, it is a question of saving the summer season
The European Commission wants to launch its “green digital certificate” at the end of June to restore circulation in Europe.
This is a document that indicates that the traveler is well vaccinated or negative for Covid-19.
Now is the time to relax restrictions.
The rotating EU presidency, held by Portugal, a tourist country, called on states to speed up preparations.
France is preparing to reopen its borders to foreign tourists as of June 9 and is working on a list of safe countries for its nationals.
Greece, a fifth of whose wealth comes from tourism, will open its borders this week.
Not without concern from the local population, only 34% vaccinated today.
The massive recovery will probably not be for this summer
Professionals are approaching the season with measured optimism. And they can't imagine returning to 2019 levels before 2021 at best.
Europe is still far from collective immunity;
she hopes to reach it at the end of July.
The tourist season will then be well under way.
The people of northern Europe crave the southern sun.
But states continue to be cautious.
The United Kingdom has just provided the list of countries where its nationals will be able to travel without constraints.
Popular destinations such as Spain and France require quarantine upon return to the country.
Not to mention, that travel should be more expensive: a British family will have to spend on average 500 pounds more, between the isolation imposed for certain destinations and the famous PCR tests, very expensive in the United Kingdom.
Tourist countries are working on their recovery plan for the sector
If the real recovery must wait until 2021, or even 2023, you might as well prepare for it.
Spain wants to devote more than 3 billion euros of the European recovery plan to the sector.
To modernize infrastructure and aim for more sustainable tourism.
In other words, to get out of the massive and low-cost tourism model that has made the Costa Brava and Costa del Sol rich hours.
Also target a clientele with high incomes, such as those from Asia;
and whose return will truly mark the recovery of the sector in Europe.
IN SHORT
New demonstration by Air France employees this weekend
About a hundred flight crews at Toulouse-Blagnac airport are protesting against the announced closure of the three regional bases in Toulouse, Marseille and Nice.
It is being studied as part of a restructuring recognizes the Air France-KLM group.
In all, 360 staff would be affected by these closures according to the unions.
In the United States, the pipeline that closed due to a cyber attack is slowly resuming service
Colonial Pipeline, one of the largest operators in the country admitted last night to have been the victim of an attack aimed at paralyzing its computer system until the payment of a ransom.
A "
rançongiciel
".
Practice more fashionable than ever.
If the lateral networks are gradually relaunched, the resumption of the complete system will await the end of the investigations, carried out in collaboration with the federal authorities.
At this time, nothing is known about the attackers or the amounts claimed from the group.
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