Balearics considering Canaries system of tourist testing

Tourism minister Iago Negueruela said on Tuesday that "no measure" is being ruled out in reactivating tourism. This includes requiring travellers to have recorded a negative test taken no more than 72 hours before arrival. In the Canaries, travellers will need this test in order to be allowed to stay in any form of regulated tourist accommodation.

The government in the Canaries has wanted tests at airports, but it has run up against an obstacle. The Spanish government has declined to do this; the Aena airports authority has said that it doesn't have competence in matters of health security. The Canarian government is also going to legislate so that travellers must be tested when they get to their accommodation, if they cannot present a negative test report on arrival at airports. The visitors themselves or tour operators will have to pay for these tests, not hotels and other types of accommodation.

Negueruela explained that in discussions with the Spanish government, negative tests in places of origin (where people are travelling from) have been established as an important element in setting up safe corridors. However, he acknowledged that right at the moment the situations in the Balearics and the Canaries are different. The epidemiological data in the Canaries are far better than they are in the Balearics, while the Canaries are now at the start of the high season.

The two regional governments, he added, are working in coordination, as they share the same key foreign tourism markets - the UK and Germany.

Negueruela went on to point out that there are no safe corridors "as such" for the Canaries, just that the UK and German governments have removed the Canaries from their lists of travel risk destinations. He also observed that there is a difference between the two regions in respect of national tourism and mobility. This is far greater where the Balearics are concerned, a fact that makes controls at ports and airports that much more difficult.