ARCHIVED - Spanish Tourism Minister positive about possibility of re-activating summer tourism

The Spanish government hopes to have 70 per cent of the population vaccinated by the end of summer and 40 per cent by the end of spring

British holidaymakers in particular, are keen to book summer holidays and Britih media is enthusiastically reporting that first Greece and then Cyprus are planning to put measures in place for this summer to ensure that they capture as many British bookings as possible.

Spain is traditionally a hugely popular destination with British holidaymakers and the British are the largest emissor of foreign tourists to Spain, so it’s hardly surprising that second home owners and those keen to visit family, as well as those wishing to book package holidays, are busy seeking flights and information about whether Spain will be ready to receive them this summer and what the conditions will be.

At the moment, there are no clear answers, and although travellers are determinedly pouncing on any minor hint that Spain will be open for business, the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, can only hint at "the optimistic prospects" that the central government has for the tourism sector for the summer, taking into account the advance of the vaccination programme against coronavirus, which ultimately will condition how willing the country is to permit mobility.

The first hurdle is Easter and on Wednesday the majority of the autonomous regions agreed to maintain regional borders closed for the Easter week as an investment into the possibility of enjoying a better summer season because of it, and adopting a more cautious approach to this third de-escalation.

The 12,000 deaths of the third wave in Spain are being widely blamed on the lax measures over Christmas which allowed the virus to circulate more freely than would have been the case had the regional borders been maintained.

This week the Minister was interviewed on Canal Sur Radio, and reiterated that Easter must be viewed with "prudence" given the current data of the pandemic and hopes that the plan presented to the Interterritorial Health Council will "continue to make progress in containing the virus."

But the Minsiter was equally clear that she expects the vaccination plan in Spain to rack-up quite sharply from April onwards: "But now there is a different element, the vaccine, and in April we will receive five million doses," insisted Maroto, adding that the approval "in a matter of days" of the Janssen vaccine, which "will give us a very important tool with which to start scaling up because only one dose is required. "

She maintained that the government's vaccination plan is on course, so that in spring around 30-40% of the population will be vaccinated and by the end of summer 70%. "When we have that percentage of vaccination in the spring, we will be in a good position to begin to reopen our destinations in line with what we are working on in the European Union," she assured.

"Starting next week we will have four vaccines authorized by the EMA, so nothing makes us think that we cannot reach 30-40% of the vaccinated population before summer," she continued, while highlighting that the Janssen serum - the next one to be approved - will be produced in Barcelona, a factor that she considers to be "good news" that will contribute to the acceleration of the vaccination campaign. The minister has indicated that mobility in summer "will not depend only on the vaccine", since PCR testing can also be carried out, and she has considers that the vaccination passport could be "in a position" to be implemented "in May".

At the moment, however, there are no firm commitments and no firm plans around which potential holidaymakers can make a firm decision with confidence.

The EU is presenting its outline plan for the vaccine passport on March 17.

As of Wednesday evening 4.9 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in Spain, with 1.44 million people having received two doses.