Europe seeks safe revival of tourism before summer season

European Union nations seek to agree on a way to revive the crucial tourism industry this summer without causing new coronavirus infections to spike.
“We all agreed that we should have a unanimous approach when it comes to opening the borders, as we are all one family,” Croatia’s Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli told reporters in Zagreb after a video conference with his peers in the bloc. “People still want to travel outside their borders, and we should allow that as much as we possibly can.”
Tourism contributes about 10% to the EU’s economic output and provides jobs for almost 12% of workers, according to the Croat government, which currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency. Mediterranean nations are particularly vulnerable to the impact of the pandemic, as tourism makes for large parts of tax revenues and jobs.
Spain’s central bank last week said the economy could shrink between 6.8% and 12.4% this year, a range based on how long confinement measures last as well as survival rate of businesses. Greek hotels expect to lose more than half of their predicted revenue in 2020, contributing to the country’s economic contraction of between 5% and 10%, according to the government’s forecast.
Croatia depends on revenue from the sector for about 20% of its economic output. It stands to lose about 75% of its income from tourism this year, which may result in an economic drop of 9%, according to the International Monetary Fund.
While countries including Spain, Germany and Croatia have recently started easing restrictions on citizens movements, as their rates of new infections stabilized, no government in the bloc has fully reopened its border to foreigners.
“Should there be no EU-wide agreement on a safety protocol, Croatia will seek bilateral deals on opening air and road corridors with interested countries,” Cappelli said. Epidemiologists will be included consulted in the process of reopening any borders, he said.
Not every country is equally enthusiastic about allowing international travel in the coming months, however. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Sunday warned against a “European race to see who will allow tourist travel first,” recalling the incident of an Austrian ski resort that became a cluster for new infections.
The EU’s tourism ministers also said in a joint statement yesterday that the industry should be among the main priorities of the EU’s recovery plan. Jasmina Kuzmanovic & Alexander Weber, Bloomberg