Let’s say the situation between Spain and the United Kingdom has been a bit tense, since the British government has decided to implement a “traffic light” system with which it identifies as safe or unsafe to travel to other countries in Europe and the world. Within the ambar list (dangerous to travel) is Spain, which is one of the main destinations for the British in summer, and in turn constitutes the main tourist market for the Spanish. In other words, these restrictions unquestionably affect tourism and the Spanish economy.
This situation has brought with it multiple meetings of a political nature, between different actors of the Spanish economy and tourism, in search of reaching an agreement in which a channel can be found to recover the flow of British tourists to Spain, almost 18 million. tourists lost in recent months, due to the current restrictions of the British government.
In response to this, the event “Promotion of the tourist flow between Spain and the United Kingdom. How do we manage to recover the 18 million lost tourists? ”, Organized by Savills Aguirre Newman and the British Chamber of Commerce in Spain, in which the British Ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliott, has participated.
Likewise, after the intervention of Santiago Aguirre, a dialogue has taken place between Iván Carballido, communication member of the governing board of the British Chamber of Commerce, and Laura Backhouse, head of tourism of the digital, culture, media and sports department of the UK Government. During the dialogue, they highlighted the close relationship that has always existed between these two countries and the relevance of tourism for both of them at such a decisive moment for economic recovery.
As a consequence of this meeting, there have been many points that have been touched for the future recovery of the tourist flow between the two countries, thus within the exposed topics we reproduce the following:
- Sustainability and economic recovery
Specifically, Backhouse, highlighted during his speech how the tourism recovery plan contemplated for 2023, both nationally and internationally, is ambitious in its objectives and is not strictly limited to the return of pre-Covid figures. But it also meets the objectives of the fight against climate change, thus combining two of the main challenges that society currently faces: sustainability and economic recovery.
Next, Jaime Uscola, head of international business at Banco Santander, and Jihane Al Maydki, country specialist for Spain & Portugal at Santander U, analyzed the commercial coverage in the UK – Spain Corridor and pointed out that the United Kingdom represents the second destination of Spanish investments and is at the same time the fourth investor in our country in terms of tourism.
- The situation of the hotel market
Juan Garnica, executive director of the southern European hotels division of Savills Aguirre Newman, also participated in the meeting, who spoke about the situation of the hotel market in the context of the recovery. Juan Garnica has pointed out the importance of the international market and, especially the British market – which sent 18 million tourists to Spain in 2019, 22% of all foreign visitors who visited us, which accounted for more than 15% of total overnight stays, with an expenditure of more than 8,500 million euros – to underpin the recovery with the improvement of the tourist offer, expansion of destinations and seasonal adjustment.
Following his speech, Juan Garnica gave way to Gabriel Escarrer, Executive Vice President and CEO of Meliá Hotels International, and Raúl González, CEO for EMEA of Barceló Hotel Group, who shared their perspectives on the hotel market and the tourism sector short and long term.
During the round table of the event, moderated by Susana Rodríguez, CCO of Savills Aguirre Newman, Javier Águila, president of Europe and global strategy of Apple Leisure Group, Javier Gándara, general director of easyJet for southern Europe, Steve Heapy, CEO of JET2, and José María Dalmau, vice president of business development at Meliá Hotels International, discussed how to recover the growth of the tourism sector, the consequences of the pandemic in their respective companies and their prospects for recovery.
- Vaccination has started recovery
The table agreed that, with the vaccination, the sector has started the recovery, which will be slow, sustained and constant until it returns to pre-covid levels. Participants have found that significant increases in reserves have already been registered due to the announcement of the elimination of quarantine for vaccinated people, although they are still in the short term and it is necessary to be able to secure reserves earlier in order to recover greater stability.
For this they have expressed in the forum the need to improve communication on mobility, procedures and security guarantees. They have also requested greater consistency in the decisions of the different governments and common rules, so that travelers can plan their trips with greater certainty, as well as they have indicated the digitization of procedures in the travel experience as a key point in the positioning of the destinations.
- Common rules between Spain and the United Kingdom
In this sense, the speakers reflected on the need to establish common rules, such as on the recognition of Covid certificates between Spain and the United Kingdom, a measure that has not yet been implemented and that would be very beneficial for tourism between both powers.
Finally, the conference was attended by Hugh Elliott, British Ambassador to Spain, who closed the forum by commenting that: “The impact of the coronavirus on the tourism sector has been immense, and there are challenges to achieve its recovery. But from governments and companies we are making a great effort to achieve this recovery. We too, at the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Spain, with our key position, from which we can contribute to the recovery of tourism between the two countries. In addition, all parties collaborate with each other. For this reason, I am confident that we will soon achieve that our ties in the tourism sector are equal, and even better, than they were before the pandemic ”. expressed the British ambassador.
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