The UK, and other countries in Europe that have put Spain on the Covid-19 black list, have higher levels of the virus at home than the main Spanish holiday destinations, reveals some diligent analysis of data from the WHO and Spanish Health Ministry by Sonneil, a real estate company in Spain.
The vast majority of summer holiday makers (and second home owners) visiting Spain from countries like the UK, which has put the whole of Spain on the quarantine list, and Germany, which has advised its citizens from travelling to parts of Spain, head for the Costa Blanca in Alicante province, the Costa del Sol in Malaga province, or the Canary and Balearic islands. But if you dig into the numbers, as Sonneil have done, it turns out the level of C19 infection rates in those areas is as low, or lower, than the countries where the tourists come from.
For example, around the time when the British quarantine of Spain was announced, the UK had a case rate of 460 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 631 in Spain, but if you look at the case rate in areas favoured by British tourists, you see lower levels than the UK as a whole.
- Alicante / Costa Blanca: 310
- Malaga / Costa del Sol: 266
- Balearic Islands: 222
- Tenerife / Canaries: 167
- Las Palmas / Canaries: 81
The case rate in Germany, which has advised its citizens against travel to Spain, is around 255, which is no better than the Balearics or the Canaries, where most German tourists go in Spain.
The blanket anti-C19 measures taken by the UK against Spain might do little to protect the British from a virus already endemic at home, but will do much to damage the Spanish tourism industry, which was already reeling from the impact of the virus in the first half of the year. There go all the hopes of salvaging the industry, economy, and jobs in the second half. Millions of families will suffer as a result.
I fear that, as a consequence, many businesses in tourist destinations will close down, and drag down the housing market with them. There is already evidence of this happening as I report in this article Spanish tourism crisis drags down the housing market in coastal areas.
