UK warns against holidays in Spain as it now allows Brits in without Covid test
UK tourists have been urged by the government to stay away from Spain, even after the popular holiday destination today opened its border to British travellers.
British sunseekers will be able to travel to Spain without needing to provide a negative coronavirus test or to quarantine from today.
But the Mediterranean country remains on the Government’s “amber list”, meaning people returning will need to take a series of Covid-19 tests and self-isolate at home.
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez said the country would be “delighted, extremely delighted” to receive British tourists again this summer.
UK business minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan told Sky News this morning: “The Prime Minister has been clear that, for now, amber means ‘please don’t go unless there is an urgent family reason and so on’ because we are still trying to slowly move through our road map to being able to open up on June 21 and we want to do that in a steady and careful way.”
She added that “we hope very much that, obviously, the amber numbers will become more green in due course” but “at the moment, today, that means amber countries really aren’t safe to go to”.
The move from Madrid comes as part of a wider move to allow people from other non-EU countries who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus to enter the country from 7 June, including US citizens.
Sanchez said the easing of restrictions should help Spain’s summer tourism to reach 30 to 40 per cent of 2019 levels.
Tourism in Spain relies heavily on British tourists, and while airlines and other travel firms may welcome the move, the country still remains on the UK’s amber list.
Travellers returning from Spain will still have to take a test before boarding a flight home and then quarantine at home for 10 days, taking a further two tests which they must buy themselves.
The Foreign Office continues to advise against all but essential travel to Spain, excluding the Canary Islands.
However Spain’s tourism minister this morning said he was confident that Spain will shortly move from the UK’s amber list to the green list, wheerby returnees from Spain would not have to isolate or do more than the Day 2 PCR test once back on UK soil.
Fernando Valdes said: “Right now Spain is doing a great effort not only in terms of vaccination, we have at least one third of our whole population with at least one dose… but also, we do have some holiday destinations which are very loved by British tourists such as the Balearic islands, Costa Blanca or Malaga, with our notification rates which are pretty low and by the same notification range of the UK.
“so I have to suspect that on the next review that the UK Government can provide… Spain is going to change on its notification.”
Last week EU ambassadors agreed to ease restriction on non-essential trips into the EU from the UK. Portugal and Greece have already begun welcoming UK tourists, but the EU-wide move boosts the chances of a summer revival for the travel industry.
But some EU countries are hesitating over opening the borders to UK visitors after a surge in cases related to the Indian variant. Germany recently announced that anyone arriving from the UK would have to quarantine for two weeks amid fears of the variant.