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TOURISM

OPINION: Spain is open for tourists but are the risks worth it?

Spain is welcoming tourists again but will they come? Graham Keeley considers the whether the efforts and the risks of reopening the borders on Sunday will be worth it.

Published: 19 June 2020 10:46 CEST
Updated: 22 June 2020 15:43 CEST
OPINION: Spain is open for tourists but are the risks worth it?
Photo: AFP

After months of lockdown, Spain's tourism industry finally opened for business on Sunday as it ends its quarantine for international visitors from many European countries.

But how many people are going to come?

Britons are dying to hit the beaches of Spain after spending months being cooped up inside at home, according to a survey from one holiday search engine.

Spain was the favourite destination, with nine per cent of the 3,050 people questioned saying they would like to travel there, beating Italy, Greece and France.

Yet surveys are one thing, reality seems another.

Speaking to people who had booked holidays before the Covid-19 epidemic, many have had their trips cancelled even though they were due to arrive in Spain in July.

The Canary Islands tourist board told me that the British tour operator Jet2 Holidays are booking flights from mid July. Other resorts which deal with the same company, like Lloret de Mar, are also in talks with the tour operator to kick start the season.

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Jet2 Holidays have not responded to my request for a comment.

Ensuring foreign tourists return to save something of the 'season' this year, is a high-stakes game for Spain, for whom the tourism sector accounts for 12% of GDP and 2.6 million jobs.

Spain for Sure, an initiative to convince tourists that the country is a safe place to visit, was launched on Thursday.

To my mind, they could have named it better – it seems like they have paid a local translation agency to use a slogan which works in Spanish but does not in English. Not a great start. Perhaps Safe Spain would have worked better. 

 

That aside, what really matters is how tourist destinations are going to safeguard travellers.

The pilot scheme launched this week in the Balearic Islands only for 11,000 German holidaymakers offered a glimpse of how holidaying in Spain might be.

Thermometer guns, plastic gloves at airports, hotels and restaurants plus face masks will be part of the experience.

Tourists will have to complete a questionnaire at the airport, will be given information on social distancing and mask-wearing rules and submit their contact details to authorities.

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Face masks will be required in all indoor public areas at hotels. Guests must have their temperatures taken before they enter hotel restaurants. Gloves will be mandatory when people eat in a hotel buffet. Arrows will be placed on the floor in hotels to keep guests separate.

Health officials must check on tourists. Anyone with Covid-19 symptoms like a cough or a fever must be tested within 24 hours.

Those who test positive will be isolated in apartments reserved by the local authorities. A team of 150 contact tracers have been taken on.

Pardon me, but it all seems like a lot of effort – and risk – for a bit of sun or a swim in the Mediterranean.

Or does it?

If you are sitting in parts of northern Europe, possibly with an occasional spot of rain, it might seem like heaven and well worth the extra hassle.

Whatever your feelings, whenever the tourists do arrive, there will be those who work as waiters, hotel owners, tour guides etc who will be immensely relieved.

This feeling may not be shared by the locals.

Spaniards have always seemed very tolerant of the antics of some tourists.

A friend has just sent me a joke about how Britons will not return to Spain until it is a safe country – so they can enjoy balconing. Just in case you are unfamiliar with the pastime beloved by some young Britons, it involves throwing yourself off a hotel balcony into a swimming pool below, often ending your life or leaving you disabled.

Other Spaniards are less enamoured of tourists.

In Barcelona, Majorca, Valencia and other popular destinations, demonstrations were staged against the way cities became overwhelmed by tourists.

Albert Mallol, of Poblenou Stand Up, a residents' group in Barcelona, said despite the efforts of the city council to find a new model to reign in this problem, told me he believes the tourism hoards will mob his home town once again.

Foreign residents living in Spain often surprise me with their attitudes towards tourists – even those from their own countries.

Many express loathing about the excesses of tourists in resorts like Magaluf, Benidorm or Lloret de Mar.

Admittedly, sometimes things get out of control and the image they present of Brits abroad – for instance – is not a pretty one.

However, there seems a strange desire on the part of some foreigners  to shun their own countrymen or women. 

Given over 80 million tourists holidayed in Spain last year, I always think it is important to remember how important they are to this country.

As long as they are not partying in your flat, I suggest they should be allowed to have fun.

 

 

Graham Keeley is a Barcelona-based freelance journalist. Follow him on Twitter @grahamkeeley .

 

 

 

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TRAVEL NEWS

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Almost 800,000 fewer UK holidaymakers have visited Spain in 2023 when compared to 2019. What’s behind this big drop?

Published: 23 August 2023 11:36 CEST
Updated: 26 August 2023 18:32 CEST
Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Spain welcomed 12.2 million UK tourists between January and July 2023, 6 percent less when compared to the same period in 2019, according to data released on Monday by Spanish tourism association Turespaña.

This represents a decrease of 793,260 British holidaymakers for Spain so far this year.

Conversely, the number of Italian (+8 percent), Irish (+15.3 percent), Portuguese (+24.8 percent), Dutch (+4 percent) and French tourists (+5 percent) visiting España in 2023 are all above the rates in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. 

German holidaymakers are together with their British counterparts the two main nationalities showing less interest in coming to Spanish shores.

Britons still represent the biggest tourist group that comes to Spain, but it’s undergoing a slump, with another recent study by Caixabank Research suggesting numbers fell particularly in June 2023 (-12.5 percent of the usual rate). 

READ ALSO: Spain fully booked for summer despite most expensive holiday prices ever

So are some Britons falling out of love with Spain? Are there clear reasons why a holiday on the Spanish coast is on fewer British holiday itineraries?

According to Caixabank Research’s report, the main reasons are “the poor macroeconomic performance of the United Kingdom, the sharp rise in rates and the weakness of the pound”.

This is evidenced in the results of a survey by British market research company Savanta, which found that one in six Britons are not going on a summer holiday this year due to the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

Practically everything, everywhere has become more expensive, and that includes holidays in Spain: hotel stays are up 44 percent, eating out is 13 percent pricier, and flights are 40 percent more on average. 

READ ALSO: How much more expensive is it to holiday in Spain this summer?

Caixabank stressed that another reason for the drop in British holidaymakers heading to Spain is that those who can afford a holiday abroad are choosing “more competitive markets” such as Turkey, Greece and Portugal. 

And there’s no doubt that the insufferably hot summer that Spain is having, with four heatwaves so far, has also dissuaded many holidaymakers from Blighty from overcooking in the Spanish sun. 

With headlines such as “This area of Spain could become too hot for tourists” or “tourists say it’s too hot to see any sights” featuring in the UK press, budding British holidaymakers are all too aware of the suffocating weather conditions Spain and other Mediterranean countries are enduring. 

Other UK outlets have urged travellers to try out the cooler Spanish north rather than the usual piping hot Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol destinations.

Another UK poll by InsureandGo found that 71 percent of the 2,000+ British respondents thought that parts of Europe such as Spain, Greece and Turkey will be too hot to visit over summer by 2027.

There’s further concern that the introduction in 2024 of the new (and delayed) ETIAS visa for non-EU visitors, which of course now also applies to UK nationals, could further compel British tourists to choose countries to holiday in rather than Spain.

READ MORE: Will British tourists need to pay for a visa waiver to enter Spain?

However, a drop in the number of British holidaymakers may not be all that bad for Spain, even though they did spend over €17 billion on their Spanish vacations in 2022. 

Towns, cities and islands across the country have been grappling with the problem of overtourism and the consequences it has on everything from quality of life for locals to rent prices. 

READ ALSO: ‘Beach closed’ – Fake signs put up in Spain’s Mallorca to dissuade tourists

The overcrowded nature of Spain’s beaches and most beautiful holiday hotspots appears to be one of the reasons why Germans are visiting Spain in far fewer numbers. A recent report in the country’s most read magazine Stern asked “if the dream is over” in their beloved Mallorca.

Spanish authorities are also seeking to overhaul the cheaper holiday package-driven model that dominates many resorts, which includes moving away from the boozy antics of young British and other European revellers.

Fewer tourists who spend more are what Spain is theoretically now looking for, and the rise in American, Japanese and European tourists other than Brits signify less of a dependence on the British market, one which tends to maintain the country’s tourism status quo for better or for worse.

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