Amid fears of new variants of the coronavirus, new restrictions on movement have made its way as people began to look to the normally busy travel time of the year. This means more pain for airlines, hotels, restaurants, and destinations that have been struggling for more than a year after the pandemic, and slower recovery for countries where tourism is a big part of the economy.

In Europe, the outlook is clouded by delayed vaccine launches and the spread of the new variants.

That means “there is a growing risk that another summer tourist season will be lost,” said Jack Allen-Reynolds of Capital Economics: “This would put a massive strain on the Greek economy and significantly delay the recovery in Spain and Portugal.”

The travel company TUI offers package tours in the sun in Greece and Spain, but with extensive cancellation policies to attract cautious customers. |

Gerasimos Bakogiannis, owner of the Portes Palace hotel in Potidaia in northern Greece’s Halkidiki region, said it won’t even open on April 4th for Western Easter, but will wait a month for Orthodox Easter on May 2nd – and he hopes the beginning of a better summer.

“If this year is like last year, tourism will be destroyed,” he said.

[AP]

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