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Francina Armengol stressed why the summer tourist season matters so much in the Balearic Islands when she exposed the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic: production fell last year due to a wild 24 percent.
“The economy has come to a complete halt,” said the leader of the archipelago that contains Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza, which in a good year attracts 14 million foreign visitors. On the eve of a new tourist season, only about a fifth of the region’s approximately 1,000 hotels are open.
The situation in the Balearic Islands stands out even in Spain, whose growth was in 2020 worse in the industrialized world. But it is shared with other Spanish and Greek islands economically abused by the pandemic and preparing for the return to mass tourism that they hope will be their salvation.
German tourists are now back, offering a welcome relief to hoteliers and bar owners. But the difference between success and failure may lie in the recovery of visitors from the UK.
On Friday Spain said it would readmit tourists from the UK from May 24; Greece opened to visitors from the UK last month. But both are left out of Britain’s “green list” of destinations to which British citizens can travel without rigorous testing and quarantine requirements.
Before the tourist season, the Spanish and Greek islands take different paths.
Spain waited longer to open to British tourists, although formal EU is still anticipating orientation.
Greece is following its own path, opening up sooner, vaccinating people on tourist islands ahead of the rest of the population and accepting vaccinated foreign visitors with shots not yet approved by the EU pharmaceutical watchdog.
“Some destinations play irresponsible games and sometimes there are irresponsible proposals,” Armengol said. “Public health is key.”
He highlighted the hard curved edges of the Balearic Islands, a marked contrast with Madrid, which has tried to relax restrictions and controls on traffic to and from the mainland. The 14-day infection rate in the Balearic Islands is less than a third of that of Spain as a whole, while it is seven days rate is marginally below the United Kingdom.
In light of these statistics, Spain is pressuring the UK to assess destination security at the regional and non-national level. He believes that this would allow British travelers, the second largest source of tourists to the Balearic Islands after Germany and the main source for the whole of Spain, to return to the islands and elsewhere.
The importance of this step was emphasized this week when the UK government set out its advice on any destination that is not considered “green”. Grant Shapps, the UK’s transport secretary, stressed that visitors from “amber” countries such as Spain and Greece should take various tests and observe quarantine when they return to the UK. “If it’s an‘ amber ’or‘ red ’country, please don’t travel on holiday,” he stressed.
The return of British tourists is economically vital for Spain and Greece. Both experienced falls in the number of tourists of almost 80% last year; both want to return this year to about half of 2019 levels.
Under normal circumstances, tourism accounts for approximately 12% of Spain’s gross domestic product, in Greece it accounts for approximately one-fifth of production. Corfu, a favorite destination for British visitors, depends 90% directly or indirectly on tourism, according to Charalmbos Voulgaris, head of the island’s hotel association. He warned that if this summer were as bad as 2020 “it would be disastrous”.
With so much at stake, Greece said in April that tourists from the UK were welcome. This month has spread to all countries. It is also the first EU country to allow people vaccinated with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, not yet approved by the bloc’s drug regulator or the WHO, to enter without quarantine.
“Russia is an important market for us,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told the Financial Times. “We are diligently following EU rules, but when it comes to hosting tourists in Greece for a week vaccinated with the Sputnik vaccine, I see no problem.”
The country is also betting on its own vaccination strategy to ensure the safety of tourist spots. Thirty-two small Greek islands have already had their population fully vaccinated and have been declared the first “covide-free” areas in the country. The government plans to completely vaccinate another 36 medium-sized islands by the end of May and 19 larger ones by the end of June.
But Greece does not establish similar controls in the Balearic Islands on trips to and from the peninsula and its approximately 100 inhabited islands. Instead, he hopes the country as a whole will make the UK green list.
Passengers disembark from a cruise on the Greek island of Corfu this month © Adonis Skordilis / Reuters
British officials have indicated that the updated list to be presented early next month will specifically examine the islands where possible and give priority to the UK’s largest tourism markets. Portugal, which has already opened up to tourism, is the only EU country on the UK green list.
“We are periodically reviewing data on individual islands, as we do for all countries and territories,” the UK transport department said.
This approach could mean that the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands will ensure that the British are clearly ahead of the whole of Spain. But it could mean problems for Greece, whose infection rate it is 80 percent higher than in Spain, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
Shapps told the FT that it was unlikely that “people would have much time to wait before other countries could join the green list,” citing advances in the EU’s vaccination program.
In any case, Greece looks further. By the end of the month it will have more flights from the United States than even before the pandemic.
“This is not a normal summer,” said Akis Skertsos, the prime minister’s aide. “Security is an issue. . . We want visitors to trust us. “
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