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Tourist employers demand not to waste “not a minute more” in setting up safe corridors
They insist that airports are the appropriate facilities to test all travelers, including those from the peninsular territory, and recover part of the tourist winter
The tourist employers of the Canary Islands (Ashotel, FEHT, Lanzarote Tourist Federation and Asofuer) have demanded that the state and Canary Islands governments coordinate “necessary and urgent” for the implementation of safe corridors before the end of October , at least with the main source markets of the archipelago.
The associations consider that “not one more minute can be lost”, given the imminent arrival of the winter season, “which is the strongest in the Canary Islands”.
In a statement, they recall that the last steps taken by the Ministry of Tourism, when agreeing with the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands those tourist corridors, has left out the test of peninsular passengers, an aspect that the tourist employers consider “fundamental” to deal with to keep controlled the data on the incidence of Covid-19 in the Islands, vital for the Islands and the development of their economy. “Without the control of the pandemic, any other type of measure is secondary. And the tests are one of the key actions of the safe corridors that the Spanish and Canary Islands governments have agreed to articulate with the aforementioned issuing markets, they point out.
After the “almost absolute loss of the summer season in the archipelago”, the tourist employers consider that “now the Canary Islands have a second chance to be the only winter tourist destination in Europe and to try to build their main industry: tourism” . “The winter season, the strongest par excellence in the Islands, when closing its main competitors in the summer season, is essential for the sector, and there are barely two weeks left until its official entry, on November 1,” they add.
They urge Ángel Víctor Torres “to take the reins”
Tourist employers understand that “in a pandemic situation, all actions to control contagions are vital” and they see airports “as the most appropriate infrastructures to carry out passenger tests , both at origin and destination , as they are the places where practically all travelers to the Islands enter and leave “.
Regarding the announcement this Tuesday by the public body Aena, in relation to the fact that it is at the disposal of the competent authorities to collaborate in everything that is necessary to face the coronavirus pandemic, the tourist employers consider that it represents “a step forward, but that must be given a rapid pace. ” “We are already late to put all the tourist machinery to work this season, but it will always be better than doing nothing”, agree the presidents of the four employers’ associations, Jorge Marichal (Ashotel), José María Mañaricúa (FEHT), Susana Pérez (FTL / Asolan) and Antonio Hormiga (Asofuer).
For the Canary Islands tourism employers, Aena plays “a decisive role” in the organization and management of carrying out these tests as the managing body of airport infrastructures, which have also been affected in their business model by the drastic fall in traffic of passengers. For this reason, they urge the Canarian president, Ángel Víctor Torres, “to take charge of the implementation of the operations necessary to carry out tests on travelers from risk areas upon arrival and departure from Canary Islands airports” .
