Andrew EdeMajorca-International07/10/2020 07:33
TW
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Not all is lost, everyone. The Czech Republic has removed the Balearics (and the Canaries) from its list of places with high risk of coronavirus infection. It will no longer be necessary for travellers returning from the islands to present a negative test or spend fourteen days in quarantine. This joyous news was announced by the Czech health ministry on Monday, and yet it appeared to go completely unnoticed.

The most recent information I have for Czech Republic travel to the Balearics is for 2018. Airport arrivals in that year were 66,491, of which almost 56,000 were Palma. The Czech Republic is not what you would describe as a major market for the Balearics; hence the bunting was not being put out at the tourism ministry's offices on the Calle Montenegro in Palma.

Insignificant though the Czech government's decision is for Balearic tourism, it nevertheless raised the questions as to why the Czechs have made this decision and why other countries have not. According to the health ministry, its own epidemiological assessment of the situation in the Balearics and data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control guided the decision. This centre is a European Union agency. It is precisely the sort of body that can contribute to what the tourism industry has been pleading for - a harmonised European approach.

But whether the industry and Brussels like it or not, individual countries will make their own assessments. Unfortunate though this may be, it is how it is.