Yaiza Castilla explained that "the work and responsibility of the Canaries has borne fruit".
British and German tourists will be able to travel to the Canary Islands from this weekend onwards. Germany has lifted quarantines and restrictions on travel to the archipelago and the UK has included the destination in its safe corridors, the authorities in each country announced on Thursday.
The German government took this decision on Wednesday night in view of the "favourable epidemiological situation" in the Canary Islands, which has enabled it to leave the risk areas, so that Germans will be able to travel to the archipelago from 24 October.
The German government's decision will mean that tourists from this country will be able to travel to the Canary Islands without the need for quarantine on their return and also without the need for tests before boarding, as provided for in the specific protocol prepared by the regional government to try to set up safe tourist corridors from their main emitters.
For his part, the UK Transport Minister, Grant Shapps, confirmed this Thursday that the Canary Islands are included on the list of safe brokers so that the British can travel to the islands from Sunday 25 October.
Shapps, explains through his official Twitter account that after evaluating the most recent data on the incidence of the coronavirus, the destinations of the Canary Islands, the Maldives, Denmark and Mykonos have been added to the #TravelCorridors list.
Following these announcements, both the President of the Canary Islands Government, Ángel Víctor Torres, and the Canary Islands Minister of Tourism, Yaiza Castilla, have stated on their Twitter accounts that this is "very good news". Castilla explained that "the work and responsibility of the Canarian people has borne fruit".
55% of the market
Thus, the opening up of the United Kingdom and Germany to tourism allows the archipelago to aspire to 55% of its market, as indicated by Yaiza Castilla, who described the news as "magnificent", as they account for more than half of its demand.
Castilla has shown its conviction that the decision of both "will mean a reactivation of reservations" although he acknowledged that we must continue to be "prudent", since "there are still many risks in Europe beyond our control which mean that the demand for travel in general is very weak".
For this reason, he reported that the Canary Islands Government is preparing "measures to generate even more confidence in travel to the islands, while protecting and consolidating" the "safe destination status in a stable manner".
Castilla said that "starting this Saturday, 24 October, and continuing until Friday, 30 October, the airlines have scheduled 71 flights from Germany (offering 13,000 seats) and 92 from the United Kingdom, with 18,000 seats".
"There was a latent demand, very strong on the part of tour operators and airlines, but it was not accompanied by passenger reservations, largely because the quarantine obligation was holding back travel decisions in our main issuing market," he said.
Protocols in the Canary and Balearic Islands
For her part, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, also welcomed the news since, as Castilla commented, the United Kingdom and Germany are the two countries of origin of most of the winter tourists that the Canary Islands receive, so these announcements represent "an important respite" for the archipelago as the winter tourist season begins.
In a press release, Maroto pointed out that, since 9 October, the Canary and Balearic Islands have had a protocol in place that allows for the opening of tourist corridors and includes a test system at origin and destination that guarantees safe travel for tourists visiting the archipelagos.
The current incidence figures for the disease are very low on islands such as La Palma, with six cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days; Gran Canaria, with seven; La Gomera with 18 and Lanzarote with 11.
The government will continue to negotiate with Germany and other countries to set up safe tourism corridors with the Canary and Balearic Islands from a dozen European countries. According to the Government's plan, these corridors will be based on protocols that set out additional health safety measures to make travel to tourist areas possible even if they have a slightly higher incidence than that set by the European Epidemiological Centre (ECDC) or the national authorities.
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