Common front of the province to avoid the collapse of tourism
Business and political entities urge the government to rectify and include the Costa Blanca in negotiations with the United Kingdom as a quarantine-free destination for travelers - Some hotels will not open in August as planned
To. Vicente 27.07.2020 | 22:02
Common and seamless front in the fight for the UK to exclude the Costa Blanca from destinations whose travelers will have to quarantine for 14 days when they return to their country of origin and thus prevent tourism from sinking this summer. The measure announced by Boris Johnson last Saturday was a “blow” for the sector that has already set to work to include the province in those negotiations that the Government has launched and which, at first , only included the Canary and Balearic Islands.
And it is that this imposed quarantine threatens to end the reserves that little by little had been increasing by the English to spend a few days of vacation on the Costa Blanca. This market is the most numerous in the province, reaching 40% of the total in Benidorm, so the loss of travelers from the United Kingdom threatens to sink an already touched sector and will have to do numbers again. For example, according to data from Hosbec, "between 200,000 and 300,000 overnight stays by Britons" had been scheduled for August. She added that 85% of the hotel plant in the tourist capital was going to be open with the arrival of these tourists. Now, after the announcement of the English Government, the numbers could change. This was confirmed to this newspaper by the president of the Hosbec hotel association, Toni Mayor, who pointed out that the quarantine will weigh down many hotels and that "of those they planned to open, some will not open and others will postpone it until August 15 »to see if the United Kingdom withdraws that quarantine again for those who return to their country after visiting Spain. "If he gets up, he would give us oxygen" again to a tourist season that was already affected by the health situation of thecoronarivus . But in addition, the English decision also takes its toll on the economy: "It is the most profitable time of the year for us, so the situation will be very bad" after "we saw some light" and the national market is working well . But for Benidorm, the Briton was the option to close an atypical season with figures that, although far from normal, "were good".
The sector agrees that the Government of Pedro Sánchez has to put all efforts now so that the Costa Blanca and the Valencian Community enter these safe corridors and asks it to rectify and not only negotiate with the United Kingdom the arrival of tourists to the Balearic Islands or Canary Islands but also to this area. To begin with, as the president of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig , indicated yesterday , "we are in permanent contact with the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, and also Foreign Affairs, because we believe that it is very important to guarantee the ability to respond to the decision of the English Government" . Thus he added that "the Valencian Community has fewer infections, it has a better epidemiological situation than the United Kingdom, so we do not understand this decision, which harms British and Spanish citizens, in addition to causing very serious economic damage ”.
For his part, the president of the Diputación, Carlos Mazón, met yesterday with the sector urgently and demanded that the central government work to include the Alicante-Elche airport within the safe corridors with the United Kingdom. "We are not willing to tolerate this injury that involves a blow to the summer season in our tourism sector," he added. From the PPCV, Isabel Bonig urged Puig to address the Government of Spain to request this inclusion of the province of Alicante, which "is where there are more British residents."
The President of Hosbec added that "it is unfair because the rate of contagion in the Community is below that of the Balearic or Canary Islands." So the sectors involved do not understand that the province has been ruled out of that negotiation. A message that was repeated yesterday and spread like wildfire among businessmen, municipalities and political representatives who shared a common front in a situation that further complicates the recovery of the province's main economic engine. All request that this area be included in safe destinations and Alicante-Elche airport within the sanitary corridors with the United Kingdom. Because the general conclusion is that the consequences for tourism can be dire and that they will cause cancellations, closings and job losses.
Destination and airport
To start, the Benidorm City Council, a municipality where the British market accounts for up to 40% of its visitors , yesterday approved a motion to ask the Government of Spain to "not create first-class and second-class destinations" by including only the islands in the negotiations. It was also added that the central Executive urgently carry out all the necessary steps so that the Alicante-Elche airport is part of the network of safe corridors. In the same sense, the Alicante City Council ruled with an institutional declaration signed by the PP governmentand Cs in which they request this inclusion of the airport in the network of safe corridors between Spain and the United Kingdom, as the province is one of the destinations with the lowest rate of regrowth, not even reaching a hundred positive cases. The opposite, they affirmed, "supposes a blow" to the Alicante tourism.
A request that was also repeated by the autonomous CEV employers in Alicante for the Ministry of Tourism to intercede with the British Executive so that the Costa Blanca and the Valencian Community are excluded from the list of destinations to which the Government of Boris Johnson recommends not to travel. The president of the entity in Alicante, Perfecto Palacio, asked the Spanish Executive to assess the vital importance that this market has for the Costa Blanca and to "take into account objective data, such as the six million British travelers that Alicante airport receives -Elche compared to 5.5 million in Palma and 5.1 million in the Canary Islands ».
Thus, the intention is to include Alicante in this negotiation for the Islands: "The Community and our province in particular are a safe destination to travel." And he pointed out that "establishing a safe corridor between Alicante-Elche airport and the bases of the United Kingdom is a matter of life and death for the main sector of the province."
For its part, the Association of Tourist Companies of Elche (AETE) also spoke on the same line so that the Alicante-Elche airport is included among those that will have a secure air corridor with the United Kingdom. The Alicante Chamber of Commerce, meeting yesterday, also agreed to join the general requests of governments, institutions, associations and tourism companies.
