ARCHIVED - Germany places the whole of Spain on red list for travel

Only the UK provided more foreign visitors to Spain than Germany in 2019!

The international tourism sector in Spain was dealt yet another blow last Friday when the German government added the whole country – including the Balearic Islands, where many Germans prefer to spend their summer holidays - to its “red list” of high-risk travel destinations due to the latest developments in the Covid pandemic, acting on data compiled by the Robert Koch Institute.

The decision means that all those returning to Germany after visiting Spain are required to complete a 10-day quarantine period, with the new adjustment to regulations coming into force at midnight on Tuesday 27 July. On the other hand, this requirement does not extend to those who are fully vaccinated against coronavirus or who can prove that they have recently recovered from Covid-19.

In addition, the quarantine can be shortened to five days if after that time the individual concerned returns a negative PCR test.

It is estimated that at present approximately 200,000 German residents are on package holidays in Spain, 60 per cent of them in the Balearics and another 30 per cent in the Canaries, and the importance of the German market to Spanish tourism is considerable. In 2019 11.18 million Germans visited Spain, a figure exceeded only by the number of tourists from the UK, and that they were estimated to have spent 11.7 billion euros while in this country.

That equates to an average of 32 million euros per day or 1.34 million euros per hour, underlining the importance of the market in supporting the Spanish tourism sector!