Boris Johnson’s government on Thursday added the Balearic Islands to its green list of safe tourist destinations. Tourists travelling from the UK from 5 pm next Wednesday will no longer be required to observe a mandatory 10-day quarantine on their return. However, they will have to undergo several tests for COVID-19. In 2019, almost four million Britons enjoyed their holidays in the archipelago, mainly in Mallorca.
Downing Street – which has added the island of Malta and Caribbean destinations such as the Cayman Islands, Barbados, Bermuda, Dominica, and Grenada – leaves out the rest of Spain, which remains on the amber list, i.e. territories to which the British government advises against travel. London reviews this classification every three weeks.
Ministers convened by Johnson on Thursday to review the current conditions for international travel also discussed the idea of avoiding the return quarantine for people who have completed their vaccination schedule (two doses) and are travelling to countries on the amber list. All of Europe (except for Gibraltar and now the Balearics and Malta) is in this category. The UK government strongly discourages travel to these areas unless it is for fundamental reasons.
To the despair of the tourism industry, London has decided to delay the exemption from the entire immunisation guideline for the time being. The International Travel and Tourism Council has estimated losses of 740 million euros a day due to indecision, leading some to predict that the summer season has been completely lost.
The Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, confirmed on his Twitter account: “Thanks to our successful vaccination programme, our intention is that later in the summer, UK residents who are fully vaccinated will not have to isolate when travelling from amber list countries”.
Paradoxically, Johnson’s reluctance to open up international tourism may have backfired. The ultimate reason lay in the new variants of the virus and the need for continued border control. Today the delta variant (which emerged in India) is almost 100% predominant in all new infections in the UK.
The Balearic tourism sector has welcomed with relief the inclusion of the Balearics on the UK’s green list. The president of the hotel federation of Mallorca, María José Aguiló, has said that it is “very good news” for the areas where they work with the British market because they will be able to reactivate the activity and the hiring of staff, reports Lucía Bohórquez. However, the Federation urges the sector to prepare for the sharp increase in travellers expected to arrive from the UK from next week. “They will certainly book holidays when it is feasible because we are one of their favourite destinations. So it is important that they present a negative test on arrival and that the airport adapts to the increased flow of these travellers, who undergo different controls,” Aguiló stressed.
Do you think it is still too early to open the borders with such confidence and trust in a vaccine that has not been tested for a long time but has is massively distributed worldwide? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
