Jason MoorePalma14/04/2021 10:08
TW
1

About six months ago the Balearic President Francina Armengol called for the islands to be given vaccine priority as a result of the importance of tourism. Madrid said no. All of Spain would be treated the same. But all of Spain is not the same. An estimated 95 percent of GDP in the Balearics is related to tourism. No tourists, no income. But the problem at the moment is even more pronounced, no vaccine, no tourists no income.

Both Germany and Britain believe that the vaccine is the key to combat Covid and the more people who are vaccinated the easier it will be to unlock the tourist industry. But so far the vaccine rollout in the Balearics has been slow. Infact, I sincerely doubt that half of the population will be vaccinated by the summer in the Balearics. Opposition parties in the Balearic parliament are now calling on Balearic leader, Francina Armengol, to go out onto the open market and buy the vaccine for the Balearics. We have the nasty prospect at the moment of another season without tourists. If the vaccine had been given priority to the holiday destinations in Spain then I think the country would have been in a better position to start welcoming tourists.

One of the driving forces of the Spanish economy is tourism. It helps pay for the more poorer regions of the country. But if there is no tourism cash then the whole country will suffer. It wasn´t a question of the holiday areas trying to queue jump, it was a question of economic necessity.