SPAIN'S tourism industry representatives are calling for the Covid vaccine roll-out to be accelerated as much as possible to avoid another 'lost year' for one of the country's biggest sources of employment and income.
Around 20 associations, all in some way linked to the holiday or hotel and catering sectors, staged a meeting in Madrid where they urged the government to take swift action to keep businesses afloat.
Health ministry sources have already estimated that up to 70% of Spain's population could be vaccinated – both doses – before summer starts, but the tourism industry is concerned about what will happen if this is not the case, and wants action to be taken to help increase the figure to at least 80% or 90%.
This said, chairman of the Tourism Round Table meeting in the capital, Juan Molas, says sector traders are feeling 'a little more optimistic' this year, given that the country's largest output nation for summer visitors, the UK, is 'moving on quickly' with its vaccination programme.
Now onto the over-75s, many of whom have had their first dose, the UK is not moving as quickly with second doses as Spain, which has opted to give both jabs to each sector of the population before moving onto the next – by contrast, Britain is now offering appointments for March for those who had their first dose in the initial two weeks of January.
But by the end of March, says Molas, it is anticipated that around 15 million British residents will have been vaccinated and be safe to travel – albeit a high number of those 15 million will not be candidates for summer holidays in Spain, as they will include care home residents and the over-80s living at home.
If an average of 100 to 120 million Europeans are vaccinated within the first six months of the year, Molas estimates, Spain could potentially see about 20 to 25 million tourists from abroad by mid-May.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com