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Berlin (dpa) - horror and despair in the German travel industry: After the decision of the Corona summit to extend the lockdown until mid-April, there is criticism.
"Once again the federal and state governments are leaving Germany tourism out in the rain without any prospects," said Norbert Kunz, managing director of the German Tourism Association.
The Easter business between Rügen and Garmisch-Partenkirchen is lost.
The airlines and package tour operators have at least succeeded in preventing general quarantine for returning passengers from non-risk areas.
The industry assured Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) to test the Easter vacationers before they return home.
Lufthansa, Eurowings, TUI and Condor announced corresponding efforts to implement them.
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At the summit, the federal and state governments agreed to continue to discourage tourist travel at home and abroad.
The German Tourism Association criticized that the industry with almost 3 million employees had been promised a strategy as to when and under what conditions safe travel would be possible again.
«Nothing of that can be seen far and wide.
No plan, no strategy, not even a small signal for safe travel in your own state, ”said association manager Kunz.
The association's deputy chief executive, Dirk Dunkelberg, told SWR Aktuell: "Anger and despair are spreading among the actors and service providers in tourism."
At the same time, he expressed a lack of understanding for the fact that trips to the Mediterranean are possible, but the rental of holiday apartments, for example in the Black Forest, remains prohibited.
"You can't really justify that seriously anymore."
The holiday home industry and the camping industry complained that the Easter business was also failing this year.
"They don't even give us an explanation as to why vacation home vacations in their own country are still banned as a form of vacation with little contact, but you can get on the plane to travel abroad," criticized the German Vacation Home Association.
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All travelers who return from abroad should in future take a corona test, even if they come from a non-risk area such as Mallorca at the moment.
Responsibilities and the assumption of costs were still largely unclear on the day after the Prime Minister's Conference, but all those involved assume that there is sufficient test infrastructure in Mallorca and the other areas.
Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) wants to establish the new test obligation within a few days by regulation.
According to reports, the airlines and organizers will use local service providers.
However, the industry sees the concession as a temporary exception in the current acute phase of the pandemic, as BDL Managing Director Matthias von Randow made clear in Berlin.
"After the planned Easter lockdown, we should come back to a regulation that is based on the actual infection process."
In principle, the distinction between risk and non-risk areas has proven its worth.
For the time after Easter, tourism experts are even urging that passengers can prevent quarantine even when entering from simple risk areas with a negative test.
A corresponding procedure for free testing upon entry is contained in the final draft of a federal-state working group, about which Scheuer wants to speak to the industry again after the holidays.
He wanted to bring all airlines to one table, said the CSU politician.
The priority is to make safe travel possible with tests.
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The airlines also announced that they would no longer plan any additional flights to Mallorca over the Easter holidays.
That was what the federal and state governments demanded.
A week ago, the federal government removed the Germans' favorite island from the list of risk areas and lifted the travel warning due to the sharp drop in infection rates.
This eliminated the quarantine and, initially, the obligation to test for returnees.
The German Travel Association (DRV) welcomed that holidaymakers from non-risk areas do not have to continue to be quarantined when they return.
DRV President Norbert Fiebig believes that the fact that they have to do a corona test instead before departure is “justifiable at this very exciting time”, as he told the editorial network Germany (RND).
Fiebig argued that travel should also be made possible in Germany, where this was “justifiable from a health point of view”.
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