Europe's tourism revival is running into turbulence only weeks after countries opened their borders, with rising infections in Spain and other countries, reports AP.
European countries started opening up to each other's tourists in mid-June, but recent events have shown that the new freedom to travel is subject to unpredictable setbacks.
Now authorities are worried about people bringing the coronavirus home from their summer vacations. Over the weekend, Britain imposed a 14-day quarantine on travelers arriving from Spain, Norway ordered a 10-day quarantine for people returning from the entire Iberian peninsula, and France urged its citizens not to visit Spain's Catalonia region.
In Austria, the lakeside resort town of St. Wolfgang shortened bar opening hours after an outbreak was detected on Friday. By Monday, 53 people had tested positive, including many interns working in the tourism industry.
In Germany, officials decided last week to set up testing stations at airports to encourage people arriving from a long list of countries deemed high-risk — including traditionally popular destinations such as Turkey — to get tested. They will also allow people to get tested elsewhere for free within three days of arrival.
“We are still very concerned about holidays,” Bavaria's governor, Markus Soeder, said Monday.
“My worry is not that there will be one big Ischgl, but that there will be many mini-Ischgls,” he added, referring to the Austrian ski resort that was an early European hot spot in March.
“We are already seeing this in Spain, but also in other places,” he said, adding that German residents' trips to visit families abroad are also a concern. Soeder called for tests of returning vacationers from risky areas at airports to be made obligatory, something that the federal government is considering.
“Mostly it is the considerate people who have behaved very cautiously on vacation anyway who take up the voluntary offers, while those who are more careless don't take a voluntary test,” Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, Helge Braun, told RBB Inforadio.
New infections in Germany have been creeping higher from a low level. Tourism employs 2.6 million people in Spain and generates 12% of the country’s economic activity.
Juan Molas, the head of a national association of tourism companies, Mesa del Turismo, said Spain’s tourism sector has on average lost 5 billion euros ($5.8 billion) a week since March.
Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said the Spanish government is trying to persuade the U.K. to exempt the Balearic Islands, which have a relatively low infection rate, from the quarantine rule.
The head of the Valencia regional government, which includes the popular Costa Blanca, also said he wanted an exemption.
“The tourist season has already been very difficult,” Ximo Puig told Cadena Ser radio. “We had some hope of salvaging something in August, but this is a very hard blow.”
The northeastern Catalonia and Aragón regions have Spain's most worrying virus clusters, prompting authorities to tighten restrictions in Barcelona, in a rural area around Lleida and in Zaragoza that were relaxed only a month ago.
Elsewhere in Europe, authorities in Belgium said that COVID-19 cases are growing at an alarming rate amid a surge of infections in Antwerp. Greek authorities said they are likely to extend the mandatory use of masks at churches and shopping malls, citing worsening public adherence to safety guidelines.
And in north Africa, Morocco banned most travel to and from some major cities — including Tangier, Casablanca and Marrakech, usually a popular tourist destination — to try to stem a small spike in cases.
In the Asia-Pacific region, many countries are still essentially banning foreign travelers or, if they do allow them to enter, requiring them to submit to tests and strict quarantine.
That includes Australia, where the premier of Victoria state, Daniel Andrews, said the biggest driver in the region's current outbreak is people continuing to go to work after showing symptoms.