Spain to welcome tourists from spring: Country’s Tourism Minister

Dhaka: Spain will open to tourists by the spring this year, the country’s tourism minister Reyes Maroto said, adding, Spain's "priority in 2021 is to reactivate tourism and resume safe mobility on a global scale as soon as possible".

“We hope that at the end of spring and especially during the summer, international travel will resume and travellers will choose Spain as their destination.”

Speaking during a presentation at the end of January, Maroto confirmed that the country would be looking to welcome tourists within a couple of months rather than at the end of the summer, as Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had previously stated.

The news will be welcomed by the Spanish club scene, which of course includes Ibiza and thriving scenes in Barcelona and Madrid.

Sánchez had announced that Spain's strategy was to vaccinate the "population at the highest possible rate" which would enable the country to "be progressively better prepared to receive international tourists." He predicted that 70 per cent of Spain's population would have received the vaccine by the end of summer.

Club owners and promoters are hoping that rapid testing and roll-out of the vaccine will mean that 2021 will start to get back to a semblance of normality in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Barcelona festival Primavera Sound recently announced that an event it held with rapid testing returned no COVID infections.