SPAIN: ‘We will be ready to welcome back tourists en masse from June’

Spain will welcome back tourists in June as the country prepares to reopen to visitors. The Secretary of State for Tourism has said he expects travel to resume this summer after the European Union announced their plan for coronavirus vaccine certificates.

Even though the UK Government has not yet confirmed whether holidays will be able to resume from May 17th during the next stage in their roadmap out of lockdown, it is expected they will allow limited travel overseas to a number of countries on their ‘green' list.

The EU's digital certificate will allow people to show if they have been vaccinated or have recently tested negative for Covid-19, and will be accepted as “proof” a person has had a Covid-19 jab, received a negative test result, or recovered from the virus, according to the European Commission’s proposal.

Spain have said that they are trialling the digital certificate scheme ahead of a planned rollout in June. The Secretary of State for Tourism, Fernando Valdes Verelst, told a travel and tourism conference in Mexico this week: “I think the best thing that Governments can do right now, is to provide certainty to travellers, by giving them proper information and the security that they can travel and they can come back to EUropean countries.”

“In those terms, in the European Union, we have put a system in place that provides us with digital certificate. Spain is going to be ready in June to use this ‘Covid passport as we are running a pilot programme in May, in all of our 46 airports nationwide.

“We are going to give all travellers the certainty that Spain is going to be ready in June to welcome all travellers worldwide, so that you can come and visit us.”

It's hoped that holidays will be able to resume within weeks from the UK, under a new traffic light system. However, the original 'green' list, which won't require quarantine upon return, could only include a small number of countries to avoid the risk of another wave of the virus.

The 'amber' list will require Brits to quarantine at home for 10 days with two tests, while 'red' will have the severe restrictions that are currently in place, including hotel quarantine.

A UK Government spokesperson said: “Ensuring free and open travel with our European partners is vitally important, which is why we will be engaging the European Commission on reopening travel routes from the UK shortly.”