The Spanish resorts that will be killed by UK quarantine rules

Just days after UK schools broke up for the summer holidays, the government announced that all travellers arriving into the UK from Spain on or after July 26 would be required to self isolate for 14 days.

With less than 24 hours notice, major tour operators like TUI and Jet2 were forced to cancel all holidays to mainland Spain. Now, the country’s already struggling travel industry is being pushed to breaking point.

Three weeks ago, I boarded one of the first Ryanair flights to leave Stansted airport since the world first went into lockdown in early March. The FCO had just given the green light on non-essential travel to Spain, so I decided to travel to my family home near Benidorm, where, under Spain’s strict lockdown rules, my mother had spent the last four months venturing no further than a mile from her house.

I spent the next three weeks ordering tapas by hovering my phone over laminated barcodes, booking my afternoon beach slots via an app, and having my hands smothered in disinfectant by mask-covered waiters. I’d even ventured to a national park, where Spain’s strict book-ahead measures ensured that, for the first time since my childhood, I was able to hike its trails and swim in its waterfalls without rubbing shoulders with other tourists.

Despite having to adapt to safety measures that were alien to me, it felt good to be here. The sun hadn’t stopped shining, the sea was a deeper blue than I’d ever seen it, and the restaurants were once again filling the air with the sweet smell of sizzling garlic and pan-fried chorizo. It felt like my childhood home, despite it being one of the hardest-hit countries in Europe, finally had a spring in its step again. Above all, I felt safe here; perhaps even safer than I’d ever felt in the UK.

Which is why what came next came as a total shock. Just as local businesses were getting back on their feet, on July 25 the UK delivered a shattering blow to Spain’s travel industry: due to the rise in reported coronavirus cases in Catalonia and Aragon, all of mainland Spain, despite some regions with lower rates than some parts of the UK, was back on the blacklist.

British families who had just flown out for their summer holiday could either miraculously make it back by midnight or spend two weeks in self-isolation upon their return and hope that their employers would be “understanding” of the situation. The result? Some panic, but mainly frustration.

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

“I was cooking dinner in our villa when I heard the news,” says Becky Simms, who arrived in the Costa Blanca town of La Marina on July 16 for a three-week holiday. “My first reaction was frustration. Everyone here has been so vigilant with masks and social distancing and we’ve been staying in a private villa, yet we still have to quarantine when we’re back. It makes you realise how little control we have over the situation right now. I’ll be thinking twice before booking my next trip.”

Businesses, too, were devastated by the news. In Benidorm, where British holidaymakers make up for 40 per cent of the industry, travel companies are unsure how they will survive with the new quarantine rules in place.

“We’ve worked so hard to put measures in place so that Benidorm is safe for our visitors,” says Juan Jose Perez Parker, board member of AVIBE (The Benidorm Association of Travel Agents) and owner of local airport shuttle company, Beniconnect. “The news is devastating, and a complete shock considering our rate of infections is still very low. This level of uncertainty makes it impossible for us to operate.”

Further south in the Costa del Sol – a stretch of sea and sand that welcomes more than 3 million Britons every year – the regional tourism board has appealed to the UK government to reconsider the country-wide ban. “Our infection rates are ten times lower than that of Catalunya’s,” says Costa del Sol Tourism Board President, Francisco Salado.

“To not include the Costa del Sol in the safe travel corridor is a terrible injustice.” With more than 117,000 people who rely financially on Malaga’s tourism industry, Salado fears that without the UK’s support, thousands of businesses could be at risk. “British tourism is essential to the economy of the Costa del Sol; it’s essential to our survival and we insist that the British government reconsider,” says Salado.

If we’ve learnt anything from the government’s shock announcement on Saturday, it’s that blanket measures are not the solution. Forcing holidaymakers to quarantine without warning is neither effective nor moral, nor is it fair to punish an entire country for the rise in cases in one or two regions. The UK government must roll out effective testing for travellers returning to the UK and, if necessary, they should carefully consider which regions to impose measures on, rather than announce country-wide bans overnight.

If the UK government doesn’t find a new approach, I fear it could be Downing Street’s unpredictability – rather than the virus itself – that kills the travel industry for good.