• EU COVID travel certificate will be released on July 1st
  • But summer tourism is hardly halfway normal
  • Industry warns of effects on companies and jobs

LISBON / LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) – While the vital summer tourism season to the southern European economy won’t be a complete washout, it will be less than sizzling as the delta coronavirus spreads and travel barriers keep British and other sun-seekers at home.

A European Union COVID-19 travel certificate launched on Thursday could help some travel, but arrivals to tourist hotspots from Portugal to Croatia are expected to remain at normal levels, putting businesses and hospitality jobs at risk.

“The recovery of tourism in Portugal has stalled,” said Raul Martins, head of the country’s AHP hotel association, of new travel restrictions from the UK and Germany, usually lucrative markets for Portugal’s beaches, restaurants and clubs.

The rapidly spreading delta variant of the corona virus drives the cases in the tourist magnet Albufeira in the Algarve and is responsible for over half of the new infections in the capital Lisbon.

Added to this is the UK’s decision last month to remove Portugal from its “green list” of travel destinations, and Germany’s move to restrict travel there just before the introduction of EU certificates proving double vaccination or COVID-free status of a tourist .

Even before the German decision and a recent Portuguese quarantine regulation for unvaccinated British travelers, hotels there are forecasting occupancy rates of only 43% this month and 46% for August. AHP said hotels were now gloomier when polled.

Except for a few glimpses of light, the industry is seeing the same pattern across southern Europe: better than the lost summer 2020, but barely half the activity one would normally expect before the pandemic.

In Greece, where tourism accounts for a fifth of the economy, the central bank voiced concerns about new variants this week when it cut its 2021 tourism revenue forecast from 50% to 40% of 2019 revenue when it hit a record 33 Welcomed millions of visitors.

Grigoris Tassios, head of the Greek Hoteliers Association, said the average occupancy rate in hotels across the country is currently 35-45%, a rate that it held until early July.

“The bookings have clearly been frozen lately due to the uncertainty surrounding COVID and especially the Delta variant,” he said.

Spain is a little more optimistic, raising its estimate for this year’s tourist numbers to 45 million visitors – about 54% of 2019 levels – from the 42 million it predicted a month ago.

The Ministry of Tourism was particularly optimistic about the German market on Wednesday and expected the number of German tourists to reach 3.8 million this year, which corresponds to a strong 77% of the 2019 figures.

Mallorca and Spain’s other Balearic Islands are now benefiting from the UK’s move on June 30th to allow Brits to enter the country without quarantine on return: flight bookings there are 80% of the level before the pandemic.

“With the restrictions on British tourists lifted, they are back. In the first 24 hours we had reservations corresponding to 10 days of 2019, ”said a spokesman for the Spanish hotel chain Melia Hotels (MEL.MC).

SAVE THE SUMMER

In the northern European countries that cater to the sun-seekers, the vacation industry is pushing governments to find safe ways to make more travel destinations available – and quickly.

Britain’s plan to resume travel in May after a four-month lockdown has so far disappointed tour operators, with only a limited number of smaller destinations currently on the “green list” of quarantine-free travel.

“This is not the sensible restart of international travel that the industry desperately needs,” said a spokesman for ABTA, the UK industry association that represents 4,300 travel brands.

It called on the government to relax proposals to relax quarantine rules for fully vaccinated people visiting “yellow list” countries such as Spain and France.

“But this has to happen soon so that companies can save the remnants of the summer peak season, important weeks that account for two-thirds of travel company revenues,” the spokesman said.

A major headache for UK industry is coping with sudden rule changes in destination countries – Malta, for example, on Tuesday banned UK visitors who were not fully vaccinated.

Germany’s travel industry is also calling for clarity after the step of declaring Portugal a “virus variant zone”, a measure that includes a 14-day quarantine for travelers. Industry leaders warned the government this week that any move to include countries like Greece and Spain in this group would be devastating.

“This current debate about further possible changes unsettles people unnecessarily and damages trust,” said Thomas Bareiss, tourism commissioner of the federal government.

Some remain optimistic. Tomas Dvorak, an economist at Oxford Economics, said southern Europe could still regain around 85% of its 2019 levels by the end of the year if vaccination campaigns continue to intensify and overall infections are lowered.

Another optimistic indicator is Americans’ appetite for a European vacation this year – United Airlines (UAL.O), for example, said that recent bookings for southern Europe for the next 60 days actually exceeded 2019 levels.

However, a McKinsey report this week painted a clear picture of the wider damage to the region’s economy, with a full recovery in overseas tourism not likely before 2024-2025 in some cases.

It estimates that Portugal would lose around € 52 billion in revenue between 2020-2023 – equivalent to a quarter of its total GDP in 2019 – and up to 600,000 potentially affected jobs.

In the case of Spain, it was said that international tourism could not recover until 2025, putting a massive 4.4 million direct and indirect jobs at risk. Italy benefited from a more resilient domestic tourism market, which rebounded in early 2024.

While a UN study this week hails the EU COVID-19 passport as a rare example of countries harmonizing travel regulations, it won’t be enough to save the European summer.

Capital Economics argued that restrictions on people not fully vaccinated have not been lifted – meaning many travelers, including children, will continue to have COVID-19 tests – and that specific travel rules are still being set by national governments.

Still, Paris airport staff reported Thursday that the passports QR code reduced the number of document controls required to board and that many passengers were happy with the idea of ​​showing proof of vaccination.

“We have traveled a lot for work in other continents that required vaccinations, yellow fever and others,” said Laurence Filippi, a retiree, who was traveling with partner Freddy.

“It was a matter of course for us. We have been vaccinated since January.”

Additional reporting by Phil Blenkinsop in Brussels; Angeliki Koutantou, George Georgiopoulos and Lefteris Papadimas in Athens; Belen Carreno and Inti Landauro in Madrid; Emma Thomasson and Ilona Wissenbach in Berlin; Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Manuel Ausloos in Paris; Letter from Mark John; Adaptation by Raissa Kasolowsky

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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