*Europeans are starting to realize that there isn't any tourism in a quarantine, but there isn't any tourism anywhere else, either.
*So maybe they can invent something that is like tourism, except a lot less fun, I guess. “clear new protocols on flying, accommodating, interacting, dining and visiting.” Not to mention the sex tourism, which commonly goes unmentioned but is obviously a big motivator in glamorous and sensual tourist spots.
Via POLITICO EUROPE
SAVING SUMMER
IS SUMMER CANCELED? Stay at home this summer, they said, and everything will be fine. But then Europe started to look at the tourism industry’s significant contribution to the Continent’s economic output, especially for the EU’s most vulnerable countries, and all of a sudden, the question of whether summer holidays will happen to some extent or not at all became a costly one for everyone. Some say an existential one.
A question of policy, politics and very personal interests: Not only does Europe take the concept of summer vacation seriously as a way to relieve work-related stress, but it’s also a yearly ritual that feeds a lot of people. The tourism sector in the EU employs 22.6 million people, equivalent to 11.2 percent of the bloc’s total employment, and accounts for almost 10 percent of economic output. The tourism sector has been “hit the hardest across the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Austrian Minister Elisabeth Köstinger. “This is without precedence.”
Despite uncertainty about travel abroad, those highly dependent on tourism haven’t yet accepted the notion that summer’s simply going to be canceled — instead, they’re looking into ways to make traveling safe. We’ve heard this from Greece recently, which is eager to save summer. But now also from Malta, where tourists from abroad account for a quarter or more of the country’s economic output, Tourism Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli told her EU colleagues in a videoconference Monday.
It’s all about risk management: That’s according to her address, seen by Playbook: “We need to commit ourselves to reopening as soon as possible,” Farrugia Portelli said. “There are risks, but we need to manage risks,” she said, urging the EU to develop common positions, or “clear new protocols on flying, accommodating, interacting, dining and visiting,” among other things.
Only some may get to travel: One idea, popular in particular with top travel destinations, is opening “tourist corridors” in Europe, with the criteria to decide who gets to travel yet to be defined. The Maltese minister offered some potential criteria: She called for “safe corridors between territories and regions which, like Malta, received praise for its successful management” of the pandemic — we may end up in a situation where some countries’ citizens are allowed in, while others less so.
AIRLIFT TO RECOVERY: For an island like Malta, as well as Cyprus and Ireland, reopening for business is trickier than for continental holiday hot-spots. The widely shut-down aviation sector “is the main bridge to the outside world,” Farrugia Portelli said, calling for airlines to be “supported accordingly to make it more viable for them to fly at, presumably, below capacity levels.”
More airline bailouts to come: That’s a call that was echoed by the tourism ministers of nine mostly southern European countries — including Italy and Spain — in a joint declaration Monday that pits summer destinations against the countries of origin of sun-seekers. Air transport “is key for tourism and for our economies, for its contribution to economic activity and employment. Therefore, we must facilitate access to liquidity to airlines,” the declaration says.
Few flights, even fewer passengers: European air traffic is expected to be down by anywhere from 45 percent to 57 percent this year because of the coronavirus crisis, air traffic control authority Eurocontrol said in a letter obtained by POLITCO’s Saim Saeed. The organization said it predicts an 89 percent drop in air traffic in April, “causing a devastating impact on all parts of the aviation value chain, including airports.”
Business view: Luca Patanè — president of both Confturismo, the Italian tourism lobby, and Blue Panorama Airlines, an Italian carrier — told POLITICO he thinks recovery should start with airlines: “Planes cannot travel with a third of passengers, otherwise they would cost three or four times more tickets, and therefore the type of tourism we have seen in Europe so far would not be sustainable.”
Read more: Paola Tamma has more on the state of play of your summer holidays....
https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-europe-canceled-summer-holiday/
