Fiona Govan
PEOPLE from anywhere in the world will be welcomed to Spain for their holidays from June 7 as long as they have been vaccinated.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on Friday that the nation would be open to all vaccinated travellers, a full three weeks ahead of EU-wide plans for a ‘vaccine passport’.
The new rule will apply to travellers from outside the European Union including the United States, Sanchez pointed out.
“From June 7th, all vaccinated people and their families will be welcome in our country, Spain, regardless of their country of origin,” Sanchez said at Fitur, the international tourism fair taking place in Madrid.
His announcement came just hours after the news that British travellers would be allowed to visit Spain without the need for a PCR test.
Spain is desperate to kickstart its tourism sector and save the summer holidays after a devastating year last year followed by restrictions that stretched into spring and brought leisure travel to a standstill.
In the year before the pandemic hit, Spain was the second most visited nation after France welcoming 83.5 million visitors, with the 18 million British visitors counting as the largest national group.
But during 2020 the number of foreign visitors plummeted by 77% to just 19 million.
Sanchez insisted that the return of tourism was essential to driving Spain’s economic recovery with the sector counting for 12% of GDP in normal years.
However, despite Spain’s removal of restrictions on British travellers, the country remains on the “amber” list under the traffic light system imposed by UK authorities.
This means that although holidaymakers have no restrictions on coming to Spain – except to fill out a health form ahead of arrival – they will be required to quarantine on their return to UK as well as show negative PCR tests.
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