Alex Trelinski
A TOP Spanish tourist association says that air travel corridors between the UK and Spain have to be set up as losing British visitors would be ‘catastrophic’.
Exceltur, which acts as a joint body for 31 tourist-related companies in Spain, has also slammed the different ways that beaches have been organised on the Costa Blanca and across the country.
Speculation is continuing to mount that the UK is working with countries like Spain, Greece, and Portugal to introduce quarantine-free travel for arriving and departing passengers from the end of the month.
But Exceltur´s president, José Luis Zoreda, has piled on the pressure on the Madrid government to cut a deal with its British counterparts over air corridors to help save local businesses in the hospitality sector.
Luis Zoreda did not mince his words as he said: “Losing the British this summer would be catastrophic.”
Despite confusion from the Spanish government over a possible tit-for-tat response to current UK air quarantine rules, the Exceltur boss wants the British back on the Costa Blanca from this Sunday (June 21) when Spain lifts travel restrictions with most EU countries.
“All possibilities should be looked at, including allowing flights in from parts of the UK that have low coronavirus rates,” Luis Zoreda added.
Exceltur has also criticised the lack of government leadership in the way that security measures have been put together in different ways across Spain´s recently-reopened beaches.
“It does not make sense that a tourist flying in from Manchester will face one set of beach rules in the Benidorm area, and something different in Torrevieja or on the Lloret de Mar,” he fumed.
Absurd, money-grubbing desperation. How can Zoreda believe it possible to separate areas of the UK into high and low infection spaces? How would this be policed? Someone from a highly diseased area would simply catch a plane from somewhere on the “approved” list. Or would the address on their passport be scrutinised (by whom?) to ascertain their disease potential? This notion is shot full of holes on the most cursory examination.
Sooner or later we will all have to accept the edict of, ” enter this shop, plane, bar/restaurant, bus, ferry, cinema, theatre, club, school, fiesta, taxi, museum, church, demo, etc. etc. at your own risk”
The virus is going nowhere fast, so we stay locked down or learn to live (and die) with it. But lets not pretend we can wriggle around it.