El congreso Tourism Innovation Summit 2020, inaugurated in Seville, served as a thermometer to assess the mood of the tourism industry in the middle of the second wave of the coronavirus. The Barceló group, the second largest in Spain by number of rooms, foresees a reasonable tourist demand for Holy Week in 2021, although it will not reach the levels of 2019 anywhere, according to it. the regional director of Andalusia, Murcia and Alicante of the said hotel group, Juan Pedro Ott. “I am optimistic about the future of the tourism industry and, in particular, the hotel industry, although I believe that it will not fully recover from the impact of the pandemic for two or three years.”
In that same forum, Christian Boutin, Amadeus CEO for Spain and Portugal, said that there are “few green shoots” in tourism in some places, but “soon they disappear”, so he regretted that “there is no sustained improvement over time.” Boutin presented the results of a global survey conducted by Amadeus in September that revealed the five major concerns of travelers: fear of contagion from the coronavirus, quarantines for tourism, being blocked in a destination, being exposed to contagion in risk areas such as airports and not being able to enjoy the experiences at the destination due to restrictions. “These barriers make you don’t have the confidence to travel like we did before”.
The CEO of Telefónica Spain, María Jesús Almanzor, stressed the important competitive advantages that Spain has over other destinations due to the strong development of connectivity. “We are leaders because of our business fabric, leaders as a destination, and we have the best digital infrastructures in Europe, we have the base, which is connectivity, and the talent, which is our companies. Now is our time,” he stated during his speech.
The Government is committed to safety through tests at origin
The Secretary of State for Tourism, Fernando Valdés, defended that the quarantines imposed on international travelers should be “the last resort” and advocated conducting tests at origin for passengers from areas at risk for Covid-19. At the Recover consumers confidence roundtable, Valdés explained that Spain leads an ambitious position by the international community so that the policy of tests at origin is extended “and allows to recover certain mobility in tourist flows.”
