On Monday the UK Secretary of State for Business, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, urged Britons not to travel to Spain, except in an emergency, after the Spanish government lifted entry restrictions for visitors from this country.
Speaking to Sky News, Trevelyan stated that the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, “has been clear” that no leisure or holiday trips can be made to destinations included in the British Government’s amber list, which includes Spain, France and Italy.
While ‘green’ or low covid risk countries are exempt from quarantine, travellers to ‘amber’ locations must isolate themselves for ten days and undergo a minimum of two diagnostic tests on their return to the UK, while ‘red’ destinations require quarantine in a hotel.
“The reality is that, at the moment, amber countries do not meet the criteria set by our scientists to go green,” said the policymaker, who hoped this would change “in due course”.
“The recommendation continues to be: don’t go unless you absolutely have to, and remember that if you do go, a 10-day supervised quarantine will be required,” she said.
The Spanish Secretary of State for Tourism, Fernando Valdes, also told Sky News that he was confident that, thanks to the progress of vaccination and the low incidence of the virus in parts of its territory, Spain could be added to the green list at the next review in London in early June.
Valdés stressed that tourist destinations “much loved” by British holidaymakers, such as “the Balearic Islands, the Costa Blanca and Malaga”, have similar levels of infection to those in the UK.
As of Monday, the Spanish Government is allowing entry without health restrictions to travellers from countries considered safe outside the European Union, including the United Kingdom, and from June 7th any person who has been vaccinated and their family will be able to enter.
UK citizens are the foreigners who visit Spain the most: in 2019 – before the pandemic – of 83.7 million tourists who visited the country, 18.1 million were British, who went mainly to the Balearic Islands (Mediterranean), Canary Islands (Atlantic), Valencia (east) and the Costa del Sol, in Andalusia (south).