What kind of tortured logic includes the Spanish islands in the quarantine rules?

I don’t expect sympathy. I booked my family holiday to Tenerife with my eyes open. But I also did it having assessed the risks and mitigated them where possible.

First, I booked late (last week). Less time for things to go wrong, I reasoned. Second, I booked flights with British Airways because of their “book with confidence” scheme, which gives travellers the option to exchange their flights for a voucher if things go awry. Third, I looked at the Canary Islands’ low covid numbers (185 active cases across the archipelago at the moment) and thought: there’s a place that has itself assessed the risks and is managing tourism and tourists during the time of coronavirus pretty well.

I knew that already, though. As a travel journalist, I get my fair share of press releases from tourist boards – and those from the Canaries have been among the few bright spots in my inbox of late.

“At last we can say hola again” is their current mantra. “The Canary Islands are one of the regions least affected by the pandemic in Europe and indeed the world. We have been working intensely on reopening our destination so that you can visit us in maximum conditions of safety, hygiene and quality.”

Very few days have passed since I pressed the “confirm” button, but suddenly lots has changed. I watched this week’s news about the rise of infections in Catalonia and other parts of mainland Spain with huge concern for those whose lives were being directly affected, but little anxiety about its effect on a holiday in early August to Tenerife. Barcelona is 1,500 miles from the Canaries, after all, and almost all of that distance is taken up by the Atlantic Ocean.

All of which made the British government’s decision to withdraw “travel corridor” status from mainland Spain yesterday, and at the same time introduce immediate quarantine restrictions not only to Spain but also to its islands utterly perplexing.

What tortured logic is this? The FCO is “advising against all but essential travel to mainland Spain – this does not cover the Canary Islands or the Balearic Islands because travel advice is based on the risk to the individual traveller and COVID-19 infection rates are lower there than mainland Spain.”

So that’s fine: for the likes of Mallorca and Ibiza, Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the risk is low. But hold on: “People will still need to self-isolate when returning from anywhere in Spain as well as the Canary and Balearic Islands because self-isolation arrangements are put in place on the basis of risk to the UK as a whole.”

So come on, which is it? How can it be not risky for an individual to go to the Canary Islands but risky for the UK “as a whole” for someone to come back from them?

Of course, those of us fecklessly going on holidays shouldn’t be endangering others on our return, but just to be clear: the Covid rate in the UK is currently 4,388 per million people. In mainland Spain it is 5,826 per million. In France, still "safe" as far as the Government is concerned, it is 2,765 per million. In the Canary Islands it is 1,200 per million. The majority of the risk is therefore being shouldered by Canary Islanders, not UK residents.

For plenty of people – including my family – quarantining for 14 days upon our return to the UK is a deal-breaker. Even if we get a voucher for our flights, the Airbnb I booked and the car hire I arranged is now money we’ve lost.

TUI has now cancelled all its holidays to the Canaries, although easyJet and BA are continuing to fly. Without an FCO advisory holiday insurance is still valid. But the result of all this means there will be far fewer British tourists booking holidays to the Canary Islands, despite the course of the pandemic running so very differently there.

For Tenerife, proudly saying “hola again”, this will be devastating: nearly six million people visited last year, spending billions of euros, only a fraction of which will be seen in 2020.

The travel industry is teetering on a cliff-edge. Of course, public health is the most important thing; foreign holidays are a luxury that has to be kept in perspective when the world is suffering under this great crisis. But if travel corridors are going to be part of any solution – and why else would the Government have introduced them? – then the risks have to be assessed logically. Why not allow a true regional exemption for the Canaries if the infection rate is low?

Confidence for travellers – for anyone trying to assess the risks as I did – will be rocked by this latest news. If mainland Spain is about to endure a second wave of infection, then that will be truly awful, and the decision to change the FCO advice may well be justified.

Imposing quarantine restrictions on some “hotspot” airports on mainland Spain and not others is fraught with logistical difficulties (although in the future they may still provide useful mitigation). However, where practical solutions exist, as they do in the Canary Islands, they should be seized upon, rather than further undermining the travel industry as it gets unsteadily back on its feet.