THE BALEARIC Islands have been taken off the UK's 'amber list' and moved onto 'green', meaning anyone travelling between the region and Britain will not have to quarantine for 10 days in the latter.
At present, 'amber list' countries require anyone entering the UK from them to take a PCR test 72 hours before arrival and two others once in the country, adding considerable expense to the cost of a trip.
For a family holiday in Spain or any other 'amber' country, three PCRs a head would generally be prohibitive, and then all members would have to self-isolate upon their return for 10 days, potentially meaning taking anything up to a month off work.
This effectively means 'amber' countries will probably not see any British tourists this summer.
Spain's ministry of tourism has been trying to negotiate with the UK government for some time, given that many of the coastal and island areas Brits tend to holiday in have a very low contagion rate – in some cases, practically or actually zero.
On the north Costa Blanca, for example, from Calpe to the Valencia province border, only around 10 to 20 active cases have been reported in the past few weeks and there are currently just two Covid patients in the district hospital, neither of them in intensive care.
From June 30, the Balearics, along with Malta and Barbados, will be moved to 'green', meaning no quarantine or PCRs, although the Spanish government has been unsuccessful so far in convincing UK authorities to do likewise with anywhere else in the country.
This means everywhere else in Spain, along with Greece, France, Portugal and various other European summer tourism destinations are still on 'amber' – which is subject to review every three weeks – and a handful of other countries, including the whole of the island of Hispaniola, encompassing the Dominican Republic and Haïti, have been moved to 'red'.
Anyone entering the UK from a 'red' country is taken from one of a specified list of airports to a 'quarantine hotel' and ordered to stay there for 10 days without leaving the premises or stepping into communal areas – a process which is at their own cost, on top of the PCR tests required.
All 'green' countries and regions, except Malta, are still 'under vigilance' and run the risk of being 'downgraded' to 'amber' or even 'red' depending upon the evolution of their contagion rates.
British transport minister Grant Shapps says plans are in the pipeline to eliminate quarantine requirements for travellers to the UK from 'amber' countries, including returning holidaymakers, where they have been fully vaccinated, but that this 'will not come into effect until after summer'.
This will also mean the foreign office ceases to advise against all travel to 'amber' countries', Shapps says.
More details 'will be released next month', including rules applying to children and to anyone who cannot be vaccinated, how the system will work out at border control, and the dates the changes are due to come into effect.
The country rules apply to England, where approximately 56 million of the UK's 66 million population live, and the devolved Parliaments in Scotland and Northern Ireland have announced similar 'red', 'amber' and 'green' lists, whilst Wales has yet to release its own criteria.
Peak British tourist season in the Balearic Islands tends to be May and June, especially those destinations that attract young adults and groups of friends with a lower budget who would seek to avoid the much higher cost of a trip during the school summer holidays.
But between June 30 and the schools breaking up, there are still three weeks when tourists wanting to save costs can get to the Balearic Islands without quarantine or PCR requirements.
The move may help to boost the tourism industry in the islands, where professionals were dreading a second summer of hardly any foreign holidaymakers – British and German travellers make up the highest numbers of these in the region.
If the quarantine and PCR exemption for anyone fully vaccinated is not lifted until after summer, however, it may be too late to save the British tourism market in the rest of Spain in 2021.
