Spain opens its borders to vaccinated tourists and international cruise ships

Spain allows from this Monday the entry of travelers who certify that they have received the complete vaccine against COVID-19 and authorize the docking of international cruise ships, about to start the summer tourist season, the most important of the year.

The vaccination must have been carried out at least 14 days before arrival with marks Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson, authorized by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or by China Sinopharm and Sinovac-Coronavac, authorized by WHO.

As decided by the Spanish authorities, All passengers arriving in the country by air or sea must complete a health control form before departure on the Spain Travel Health website or app, on get vaccinated, get tested for coronavirus, or recover from the disease.

In the case of land borders, all persons over the age of six from countries or areas at risk arriving in Spain must have one of the aforementioned certifications.

However, travelers from Brazil, India and South Africa will not be able to enter Spain due to the high incidence of COVID-19 variants in these countries.

Europeans not vaccinated

In turn, Spain will test the digital green certificate, a QR code approved by the 27 EU countries, which guarantees that the tourist does not have a Covid either because he is vaccinated, has passed the disease or has a negative test.

Spanish regulations will admit rapid antigenic tests approved by the European Union as a diagnostic certificate, as well as PCR.

Certificates with a negative result issued within 48 hours before arrival in Spain will be valid; in resumption, the validity will end after 180 days.

They must be written in Spanish, English, French or German; if this is not possible, the supporting document must be accompanied by a translation into Spanish carried out by an official body.

With this easing of restrictions comes a significant exception in Europe: Spain continues to be viewed as risky by the UK, which means that the latter country imposes a quarantine on its citizens upon their return, discouraging their return. came to the Spanish beaches.

Spain, a world tourist power, hopes to gradually recover this sector, seriously affected by the restrictions on international travel due to the pandemic. In the first four months of this year alone, it lost around 20 million foreign tourists compared to 2019, before the pandemic, when nearly 84 million visitors in total arrived. “Spain is a safe destination and we are in a position to regain our global tourism leadership soon,” said Minister of Health, Carolina Darias.

The response of shipping companies to the lifting on Monday of the ban on international cruises in Spain was immediate and some have already included Spanish ports in their Mediterranean itineraries this summer.

With the end of the ban comes a series of measures that cruise ships must adhere to, such as not exceeding 70-75% of maximum capacity.

Spain was in 2019 the second largest market for cruise ship passengers in Europe, with 10.8 million passengers (+ 49%), and the fourth sender, with 553,000 (+ 4.4%).

(With information from EFE)

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