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First German state opens completely for tourism

On Monday Germany’s northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein opened up hotels and indoor dining. The move comes ahead of a national three-day weekend.

Published: 17 May 2021 11:50 CEST
Updated: 17 May 2021 17:05 CEST
First German state opens completely for tourism
A jogger runs past beach korbs in Scharbeutz, Schleswig-Holstein on May 9th. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Georg Wendt

Many areas of life in Schleswig-Holstein are being revived. Bars and restaurants are once again able to open for both indoor and outdoor dining, and boat trips are back up and running. 

Up until this week, tourists were only allowed to spend the night in four areas within the northern state, which acted as trial regions before the full reopening of public life. Germany has closed most of its tourism infrastructure since November.

The state has the lowest rate of coronavirus infection in the whole country, with the 7-day incidence rate currently standing at 35.1 per 100,000 inhabitants. 

READ ALSO: Northern German state leads the way as Covid cases fall nationwide

This is not quite a return to normality, however. The terms of the opening mean that tourists will still have to meet hygiene requirements and wear masks in some public areas. It is still mandatory to wear a mask on public transport, but an FFP2 mask is no longer required. 

Visitors will also be required to present a negative Covid-19 test result upon arrival and then every three days going forward. 

A negative test result, proof of full vaccination, or proof of recovery from a recent infection, will also be mandatory if holidaymakers wish to eat and drink inside restaurants. 

The leader of Germany’s Hotel and Catering Association, Ingrid Hartges, is calling on other states to follow a similar approach. 

“I feel we can learn from Schleswig-Holstein,” said Hartges on Sunday evening. Despite the opening of the tourist industry in four trial regions, the infection rate has continued to drop across the state.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: Germany’s new relaxed quarantine and testing rules for travel

Hartges made clear that there should be a focus on a ‘responsible reopening’ of the sector, saying that the hospitality industry is not a driver of the pandemic and has been hit particularly hard by Covid regulations.

Other tourism reopenings around Germany

As of Saturday, several regions in Baden-Württemberg have also reopened hotels and restaurants to the public and a number of other German states are planning to relax restrictions ahead of the Whitsun weekend. Germany has a national public holiday on Monday May 24th. 

The mayor of Hamburg, Peter Tschentscher, is set to suggest to the city council on Tuesday that outdoor dining should reopen for the religious holiday. 

Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the 7-day incidence rate is in the region of 50 per 100,000, are taking a more cautious approach to neighbouring Schleswig-Holstein. Lower Saxony has initially only opened tourism to residents of the state. 

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, tourism will be open for residents from June 7th, and for guests from other states from June 14th onwards. It will be possible to eat both inside and outside restaurants this weekend.

Dietmar Bartsch, the head of Die Linke in the Bundestag, criticised the state’s hesitance in easing the lockdown, saying it did not make sense to postpone it for so long. 

Why tourism is opening up again

The reopening of tourism and hospitality is only becoming possible because of the significant progress of Germany’s vaccination programme. In some states, vaccine priority has been lifted at GP surgeries, meaning anyone can book an appointment to get their dose. 

Baden-Württemberg and Berlin are ploughing forward with this strategy from Monday onwards, with Bavaria following their lead during the week and Saxony implementing the new approach from next Monday. 

READ ALSO: When will tourism in Germany open up again?

However, in many places there will not be enough vaccine doses to meet demand, meaning not everyone will be able to make an appointment as quickly as they may like. The priority list still applies in vaccination centres. 

More than 30 million people in Germany have now had at least one dose of the Covid vaccine, and nine million people are fully inoculated. 

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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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