Date Published: 15/08/2020
ARCHIVED - Double blow to Spanish tourism as two German giants cancel all holidays to Spain
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
On Friday the German government extended its travel warning to include all of Spain except the Canary Islands
Yesterday the German Government took the decision to include all of Spain, in its list of "risk areas" for coronavirus, the only exception being the Canary Islands.
TUI has cancelled all holidays to Spain until August 24th and DER Touristik has suspended all trips to Spain until August 21st.
Both companies have said that the announced deadlines will be extended practically automatically if the German authorities in turn extend the declaration of risk region for Spain.
Customers may choose a new destination or those who are already booked on holidays or flights to Spain can claim a full refund of the cost of the services contracted via travel agencies or airlines.
Those already in Spain will be required to either quarantine or supply a negative covid test on return.
Earlier this week TUI announced a € 1.2 billion stabilization and support package agreed through the German government which would provide sufficient liquidity in the current volatile market environment. This will cover both the seasonal swing in tourism through winter 2020/21 and other long-term travel restrictions and disruptions related to COVID-19.
In Germany there are currently about 13,000 active cases of infections with 222,828 to date.
The country has recently seen a resurgence in cases, with 1,415 positive diagnoses in the last 24 hours and six deaths.
Last year 11.18 million people visited Spain from Germany, accounting for around 13.3 per cent of the 83.7 million visitors from abroad during the year. The Canary and Balearic Islands are particular favourites with the German market and their loss will be a bitter blow to a sector already reeling from the impact of Covid.
Only the UK exceeded the contribution made by Germany (with 18.1 million visitors), but British nationals are also few and far between at the moment since the British Government imposed a 14 day quarantine on all travellers from Spain.
The need to support the tourism sector will be a particularly pressing issue in Spain this winter season, as in “normal” years tourism accounts for 12 per cent of GDP.
In the Balearic Islands around 45% of GDP depends on the tourism sector, four times more than the national average. In the case of the Canary Islands, tourism GDP is around 35%.
For the foreseeable future the number of international visitors to this country will be extremely limited due to the number of restrictions on travel to Spain and the crisis unfolding in the airline sector as flights are cancelled and consolidated to maintain some level of service.
The tourism sector believes that 2020 losses will exceed 83 billion euros, 60% of the 140 billion spent in 2019 by domestic and international tourists.
-->