Tourism leaders across Spain are pleading with the government to start urgent special measures now – as holiday hotspots warn they won’t recover from the impact of the coronavirus crisis until at least 2021, or ever in many cases.
There is huge concern in both the Canary Islands and the Balearics, which include Ibiza and Mallorca, that this year will be wiped out completely.
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Hotels have closed completely and even domestic travel is severely restricted under the State of Emergency rules, with no indication yet as to when bookings can restart.
Tenerife and the rest of the Canaries, including Lanzarote and Gran Canaria, could end the year with just five million tourists, a massive 70 per cent down on the usual 16 million.
The worries are being shared by hotel chiefs in Benidorm, the Costa Blanca and Valencia, where 60 proposals for urgent action have been drafted.
They say the money-spinning power of tourism in Spain should not be under-estimated but warn the coronavirus epidemic will wipe out thousands of holiday-related businesses who have only just got slightly back on their feet following a string of other setbacks.
These include the economic crisis, competition resurging markets like Turkey and Egypt, the collapse of Thomas Cook and the devaluation of the euro.
The Canary Islands are particularly concerned as the busiest season is in the winter and spring, both now wiped out, whilst the summer, despite the heat, is the low period and by tradition doesn’t attract the biggest number of tourists.
President Ángel VíctorTorres says at best, the season might begin again in September but he is fearful that it won’t be until 2021 when some sort of normality returns.
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He says hotels have been told to close for three months but they won’t be able to open or take bookings until they have sufficient clients and that all depends on flights, what happens in the UK with coronavirus, consumer confidence and finance.
The Canary Government is therefore demanding an extraordinary shock plan for the tourist recovery of the archipelago.
Tourism in the Canaries brings in 35 per cent of the gross domestic product, representing a total of €16,500 million a year. At the moment, however, tourism is virtually zero.
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The Balearic Islands have the opposite “seasonal” problem to the Canaries.
The summer is their busiest time because it has the best weather but unless the crisis is solved soon, bookings won’t resume for June, July, August and September and the months thereafter become too cold for any massive bounceback.
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President of the Balearic Government, Francina Armengol has backed the calls for a special plan to relaunch the tourism sector, whenever that may be, saying “tourism is a fundamental sector for our economy”.
Hoteliers in one of Mallorca’s most popular locations, Playa de Palma say they are on the point of collapse and won’t be able to open at all because they still have to pay rates and business/services taxes, despite being closed, which is “crippling” them.
Calling on the Government to suspend all taxes, Isabel Vida Association of Hoteliers of Playa de Palma said: “They are pushing us into an unprecedented economic collapse. This is going to lead to a total paralysis of the economy.”
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Ibiza, which relies heavily on the Brits, is in the same situation, with hotels and apartments closed down, travel restrictions and rapidly running out of the hot summer months.
Many businesses related to holidays and tourism have already gone bankrupt.
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Tourism leaders from the Costa Blanca, Benidorm and Valencia led the calls for hotels to be closed in a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus but say the move will cost them dear and they now deserve every help.
They have no idea when things will get back to normal, if ever, but warn: “The scenario of a serious economic crisis and an inevitable recession are no longer a possibility but a reality that has suddenly hit us. It’s going to be a long period of recovery.”
The hotel association, Hosbec has called on the Spanish Government to implement dozens of measures to kickstart tourism and bring back thousands of lost jobs, a call echoed by the Costa del Sol which has lost millions in holiday-related revenue.
Meantime, a survey of flight data collected by digital marketing company Sojern of London suggests Brits are already thinking about their next holiday, with the first choice being Spain, and are looking for flights from this October but mainly from January 2021.
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Virtually all of the popular destinations in Spain have launched new marketing campaigns, including Mallorca’s “You might not be able to travel but you can dream”.
The World Travel and Tourism Council says investment is vital, with chief executive officer, Gloria Guevara Manzo warning: “We don’t know when this nightmare will end, nor when the recovery will begin.
“What we do know is that if we do not learn from best practices and take care of this valuable sector, when the time is right there will be nothing to reactivate and the social and economic impact will take years to recover.”
