ARCHIVED - Minister retracts statement about no tourism this year in Spain, but the questions remain

Last week she said that tourism and leisure and cultural activities will not resume before the end of the year.

3 million jobs are in danger as business leaders demand a 6-month extension of ERTE employment schemes for the hostelry sector.

Last week it was announced that the IMF had adjusted its forecasts for 2019 this year due to the coronavirus emergency and predicted that the Spanish economy will shrink by a dramatic 8 per cent, but with tourism accounting for approximately 11 per cent of all economic activity in the country in recent years it may be that the decline will actually be sharper still, and there is as yet no indication when hotels, bars, restaurants and airlines will be able to begin a resumption of something approaching normal service.

At present all hotels, bars and restaurants are closed and the lockdown restrictions mean that even domestic travel is almost completely banned, although it is beginning to appear that the de-escalation of these restrictions could begin soon. With almost three million people employed in the tourism sector, though, there are fears that all of those jobs could be at risk if the shutdown continues for much longer, and statements made last Friday by Yolanda Díaz, the Minister for Work, have caused widespread alarm after she said that tourism and leisure and cultural activities will not resume before the end of the year.

Sra Díaz was obliged to retract her statement just a couple of hours later, recognizing that such decisions are the responsibility of the Ministry of Health, but by that time the damage had been done and representatives of the sector were up in arms and demanding compensation for the prolonged closure of their businesses.

"Alarming statements of this kind constitute a serious recklessness. If indeed it were to happen that Spain is closed to tourism until the end of the year, this would mean the total ruin and bankruptcy of hundreds of thousands of tourism companies, as well as their suppliers, but above all, it would mean direct harm to the 2.7 million workers in the tourism sector, "said the president of the Tourism Board, Juan Molas.

The reports were also widely mis-reported by many "media sources" causing panic.

When the hostelry sector is added to tourism the two account for around 20 per cent of Spain’s GDP, and at present this year’s losses are estimated at between 90 and 120 billion euros in tourism and 55 billion euros in hostelries. It is hoped that bars and restaurants may be able to re-open with limited capacity by the summer, and when the Minister of Work made her comments last week there was an immediate and extremely angry reaction from all of those affected.

But Yolanda Díaz is not the only government Minister to have been criticized for such statements: Alberto Garzón, the Minister for Consumer Affairs, has recommended that people should not book summer holidays, while Reyes Maroto, the Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism has spoken about the need for social distancing on beaches. Both of these appear to be sensible comments – booking a flight, for example, is hard to imagine at the moment as many airlines are inoperative – but in these sectors any pessimistic suggestions are being rejected as unnecessarily harmful with respect to the summer season which most people hope will see a partial re-opening of the businesses which are currently closed.

The reality of the situation is that at the moment no-one knows when and to what degree hotels or restaurants will be allowed to re-open, or indeed whether they will then choose to do so, and for this reason it is very inadvisable to make predictions as Sra Díaz did on Friday. But what is clear is that when those decisions are made it will be on the criteria established by the Ministry of Health over and above those of any other governmental department, and that either officially or unofficially the tourism sector in Spain will undoubtedly be very seriously affected by the pandemic; the same scenario will also apply all over the world.

Think about the airline sector at the moment. Planes are grounded worldwide, flights are few and far between, the airlines which carry the largest numbers of passengers between Spain and the UK are not expecting to start flights until later in June. If they do resume flights as we all hope they will, will social de-densification on board  increase the cost of flights? Of course it will, a Ryanair aircraft for example, with 189 seats, would depart with only 126 on board, the centre row "neutralised" to permit space between passengers. Costs are still virtually the same, so of course the price will increase.

Will the Spanish government allow in flights from countries in which Covid-19 is still active? Will it want millions of people potentially bringing the virus back after months of deprivation to get rid of it in the first place? Probably not.

Will that include the UK? Possibly, given the current evolution of the virus.

Will the airlines survive the crisis to be able to fly here? Some will, some won´t. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said that only 30 of around 700 airlines will survive unless international governments are able to offer financial support. Easyjet is still taking bookings for flights which will probably never take-off, but at least it keeps the cash moving, Jet 2 has cancelled all holidays until 17th June. Ryanair is issuing vouchers for its flights and making the cash refund process into something of a Mensa challenge in order to keep hold of its cash and bookings. It's working; one social media user this morning gave up trying to find an answer from other group members to his question of whether his flight in July would actually make it off the tarmac after unsuccessfully wrestling with the refunds process and in the end confirmed that he had re-booked his flight for 2021.

Readers are asking time and time again on social media; should we book a flight for Spain this summer and if we do, will it be cancelled? That's impossible to answer at the moment, although it might be  prudent to wait a little longer before trying to make any plans and see how the situation develops..

But without flights, international tourism will be asphyxiated, putting the pressure back onto the domestic market to perform. Providing the lockdown restrictions permit travel within Spain this summer, which they may not, we don´t know yet and neither does anyone else, coastal resorts can expect a large influx of sun-starved visitors from the cities, desperate for a bit of sun and sand. Whether the regional governments on the coast will be happy or concerned by their arrival remains to be seen, there are certainly good reasons for both responses. 

This year there will be an almost complete lack of cultural entertainment for them as virtually every summer festival has been cancelled, and will they want to eat in restaurants or prefer to maintain their own distancing? How many of them will be able to afford to eat out in restaurants given the projected number of job losses across Spain?

We have to be realistic, restauranteurs who own their own premises have a far greater capacity for survival and can afford to open for two months then close again in the autumn when the prospect of a "second wave" looms, but those who rent their properties will struggle to raise the shutters again after at least 2 months closed, still having to pay fixed costs, even if their staff have been made temporarily redundant. 

In the Region of Murcia international tourism is an important part of the sector, and is currently at a complete standstill, with no flights except emergency and medical services running at the airport in Corvera and no hotels or other accommodation open. But in the summer the main source of visitors is the domestic market, particularly Madrid, and at the moment of course it is not only inadvisable for people to travel to the coast from the capital other than in exceptional circumstances, it is illegal.

Even the many residents of the city of Murcia who own second homes on the coast are forbidden from visiting them, as was made abundantly when people attempted to flout the restrictions during the Easter holidays, and the amount of tourism and hostelry activity in Spain is zero.

However, the data regarding the spread of Covid-19 is gradually beginning to present a better picture than a couple of weeks ago, and there is increasing talk of the strictest measures being lifted in time for the summer. It has already been stated that as of 27^th April children aged under 12 will at last be allowed out of their homes (although details are yet to be confirmed), and if the health authorities continue to observe improvements it seems possible that travel restrictions will gradually be relaxed.

Within the hostelry sector it is hoped that bars and restaurants may be allowed to re-open as long a minimum distance of 1.5 or 2 metres is established between tables and/or clients (but will that affect the profitability of the establishments?), and representatives of the tourism sector are calling for government or EU aid to stimulate the international sector, including subsidies for empty seats on flights if airlines are required to leave space between passengers. This is a measure already being contemplated in countries which compete with Spain for tourists, including Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia. But of course, every sector is calling for money, every Minister fighting for subsidies, every economist predicting large-scale job losses and calling for financial stimuli.....but where is the money to come from for all this and what will it cost long-term to put the world back on its feet?

But whatever steps are taken, there are likely to be heavy losses in terms of employment in the sector and for many businesses it will not be viable to re-open for a long time. For this reason, and accepting that tourism will take longer than other sectors to recover, demands are being made for the ERTE temporary redundancy schemes to be extended for at least six months in the businesses affected, a proposal which is already being considered by working committees within the government.

A small taste of what may be to come was a news story in the regional Spanish media this morning that 30 bars in Lorca have already said they will be unable to re-open when lockdown is over and have been forced into insolvency by the current situation.

The truth is, although Yolanda Díaz was forced to rapidly retract her statements, she said what many of us have been thinking since lockdown first began; how are we going to survive this crisis and what will we face post-Covid???

And the truth is, at the moment, we really don´t know.

Remember: LOCKDOWN MEANS LOCKDOWN. STAY AT HOME. STAY SAFE AND DO YOUR BIT TO REDUCE THE SPREAD OF CORONAVIRUS.

Follow Murcia Today on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest updates locally for the Region of Murcia and the main information for the rest of Spain: https://www.facebook.com/MurciaToday/. 

Our local area groups are as follows. These are designed to filter locally specific information and may be used by clubs, charities, any of the businesses who work with us to ensure information is available to residents in English and for those living in the specific areas. They are not buy and sell groups, do not accept any bickering or argumentative so and so's, are not "open for any old rubbish" pages, and are not trying to compete with your local comunity groups, they are specifically for sharing good, relevant local information and we hope you will use them for that during this difficult time. 

Around Mazarrón news, events and local info: Click to join

Mazarrón, Fuente Álamo, Águilas, Lorca, Totana, Puerto Lumbreras, Camposol, Alhama de Murcia. Click to join (all within a half hour drive of each other)

Mar Menor news, events and local info. Click to join (this includes all the Mar Menor municipalities and Cartagena)

North-west Murcia: Bullas, Mula, Cehegin, Caravaca, Cieza, Calasparra, Jumilla, Moratalla info. Click to join

What to do if you are in the Region of Murcia and believe you may have contracted the virus

The regional government has set up a special helpline to supply information to members of the public (900 121212) if they suspect that they may have contracted the virus rather than going straight to hospital or to a medical centre.

Sensible precautions

The advice being issued to members of the public by medical authorities all over the world coincides on the following points:

- Wash hands frequently with either soap and water or a sanitiser gel

- Catch coughs and sneezes with disposable tissues – and throw the tissues away immediately after use before immediately washing your hands!

- If you don’t have a tissue, use your sleeve – and wash the item of clothing used at the next opportunity

- AVOID touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands

- AVOID close contact with people who are unwell

- Don´t panic!