Coronavirus turmoil hits Spain
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Coronavirus: Spain’s tourist industry braces for big losses at Easter
Sector particularly vulnerable as people cancel travel plans and major events are cancelled
Spain’s tourist industry is braced for huge losses over the Easter period and beyond as people cancel travel plans and major events are postponed as a result of the coronavirus.Last year, nearly 84 million people visited Spain, 18 million from the UK. Tourism is the nation’s third biggest industry, accounting for 11% of GDP. Even before the severe restrictions, including schools closures and bans on large public events, announced in the Madrid area, bookings were down.
According to the Spanish hoteliers’ confederation, reservations were already down 20-30%, in particular for holidays in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic and Canary Islands, in February compared with last year. Hotel bookings were down 24% in Madrid and 20% in Barcelona.
“The impact is really significant, especially on conferences and visitors travelling long distances,” Ramón Estalella said on behalf of the confederation. “If it’s only for a month, the impact won’t be so great, once confidence is restored. But it is impossible to predict. Every day there are new announcements from different countries and regions and government measures that change the outlook.”
A ban on trips organised by Imserso, the state body that arranges holidays and outings for the elderly, will have a huge effect on many parts of Spain, Estalella added.
The health scare is a further blow to Spain’s tourism industry, parts of which have yet to recover from the collapse of Thomas Cook last year.
Although there are no figures available, anecdotal evidence points to a sharp drop in the number of visitors from China, South Korea and Japan. In Barcelona, Chinese tourists accounted for 38% of retail spending in 2019, much of it on clothing and luxury goods.
On Thursday, Catalonia will join Madrid and parts of the Basque Country in banning sports, religious and other gatherings of more than 1,000 people.
Already major events have been cancelled elsewhere in Spain. The festival of Las Fallas in Valencia, which was due to begin on Sunday and attracts tens of thousands of visitors from Spain and abroad, has been suspended indefinitely.
More than 700 neighbourhood associations spend months creating huge effigies of famous or historical figures for the festival, nominally held in honour of St Joseph. These are burned at the end of the five-day event, which is estimated to bring in about €700m (£610m) to the local economy.
The Málaga film festival, which attracts about 150,000 people to the southern city, has also been called off. Málaga is the focus of coronavirus cases in Andalucía.
Meanwhile, numerous theatrical events have been cancelled and several rock bands are rescheduling their tours. It remains to be seen whether the Primavera Sound and Sónar music festivals, due to be held in Barcelona in June, and which attract tens of thousands of fans from all over Europe, will go ahead.
The big question mark is over Easter, only a month away, which is celebrated with huge public events in Spain, especially in Seville.
For the next two weeks, all first and second division football matches will be played behind closed doors. And, although Wednesday night’s Champions League match between Liverpool and Atlético de Madrid will be played as normal, the Spanish club has advised supporters not to travel to the game.
Barcelona says that playing its match against Naples behind closed doors next week will cost it €6m in ticket sales.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the Madrid regional president, has denied a shutdown of the region is planned. “The Madrid region has not, at any point, considered the alleged shutdown of the region,” she tweeted on Wednesday afternoon.
The government has promised a series of measures, such as extending credit to small businesses, a temporary moratorium on some taxes and a shorter working week and financial compensation for those with childcare responsibilities. It has yet to announce any steps to soften the impact on the highly vulnerable tourism and hospitality sectors.
Comments
It´s a big disaster and an outrage because a lot of people in the world are dying for this Chinese shit. What is more, everybody becomes scared because anyone can be tomorrow. We have to brace for the worst. We live in the Occident and there are many dead people, but many people live in countries without many sanitary, economic and cultural means so I can´t imagine what will happen there.
The Spanish Government didn´t protect citizens in spite of they knew that there were a lot of cases in Spain. They knew what was happening in Italy but the Spanish Government said: "It doesn´t matter". I don´t know if they are idiot or criminal. It´s possible that they are both things. Anyway, I hope that authorities of China think that they have done bad something and they apologise.
This accounts for an important damage to workers who live with the minimum necessary. Also, it accounts for the shutdown of many companies and it´s bad to workers. Everybody will be poorer and they will have to work more and harder. It remains to be seen whether this finishes soon because if it goes on for more than three months it will be an economical catastrophe in Spain, too in Europe.
In this article it is said last March 12 that Spain´s tourist braces for big losses at Easter but that prediction is not very bad now because are going losses at the summer and what is more, it will be in tourism and in almost all activities.
See you.
This is a crisis without precedent that all governments around the world are struggling with. I suppose that each government has a set of experts whose advice they follow. Serious mistakes will undoubtedly have been made but it is all too easy to criticise.
It´s a big disaster and an outrage because a lot of people in the world are dying because of this Chinese shit. What is more, everybody gets scared because it could strike anyone tomorrow. We have to brace ourselves for the worst. We live in the West and there are many dead people, but many people live in countries without a health care system, economic and cultural means so I can´t imagine what will happen there.
The Spanish Government didn´t protect its citizens in spite of knowing that there were a lot of cases in Spain. They knew what was happening in Italy but the Spanish Government said it didn't matter. I don´t know if they are fools or criminals. It´s possible that they are both things. Anyway, I hope that the Chinese authorities think that they have done things badly and they apologise.
This all has serious consequences for workers who live on the minimum wage. It has lead to the shutdown of many companies and it´s bad for workers. Everybody will be poorer and they will have to work more and harder. It remains to be seen whether this ends soon because if it goes on for more than three months, it will be an economical catastrophe for Spain as well as for Europe.
In this article dated March 12 it said that Spain´s tourist industry was braced for big losses at Easter but that prediction is very bad now because there are going to be losses in the summer too and what is more, it will be in tourism and in almost all activities.