The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Mª Dolores Corujo, held a meeting this Friday with representatives of the island's tourism sector in which the new measures to be implemented to combat the incidence of Covid-19 and face the tourism recovery for the winter season were discussed.
In the meeting, which was attended by the president of the Lanzarote Tourism Federation (FTL), Susana Pérez, together with several representatives of the sector, and in which the councilors of Tourism Promotion and Health, Ángel Vázquez and Juan Manuel Sosa, were also present, “very positively” the authorization by the central government to carry out PCR tests on all tourists arriving on the island, both at origin and destination, an initiative that opens the door and gives the green light to the establishment of safe corridors between the island and our main tourist markets.
This is an additional security measure unanimously considered as “essential to generate confidence among our main markets and offer the maximum guarantees currently available for control against the detection of possible cases of Covid-19”, said the president. In this sense, Corujo reported that “although it is still too early to know the exact start date of this measure and the cost it will entail, the Minister of Tourism, Reyes Maroto, has conveyed to us during her visit the forecast that the protocol will be prepared next week, to initially transfer it on the 28th to the European Commission with a joint proposal from all the Ministers of Tourism”.
The president also stressed that “at this time all our efforts are completely focused on what should be the central objective: to stop and reverse the current curve of infections on the island. The health of all people, both tourists and residents, is the main concern and the highest priority for this government group”.
In this sense, Corujo announced the health control measures that have been implemented to deal with the pandemic, such as “the increase in trackers on the island in order to control possible close contacts of positive cases”, as well as the recent announcement by the Canary Islands Government to “increase screenings in the capital of Lanzarote to detect asymptomatic infected people”.
Likewise, Mª Dolores Corujo, who valued the dialogue as well as the joint and coordinated effort of public-private collaboration “which is proving essential to overcome this crisis”, announced another important action that the Cabildo will launch consisting of analyzing the wastewater from certain neighborhoods and areas of the island as an effective measure to anticipate and detect the localized presence of the virus.
For his part, the Councilor for Tourism Promotion, Ángel Vázquez, stressed that “the possibility of opening safe tourist corridors between Lanzarote and some of our main markets, such as the United Kingdom and Ireland, as I have been demanding since the pandemic was declared, is great news as it would make it possible to attract a smaller, but sufficient number of tourists, which would avoid the economic collapse of the island”.
Jet2 plans to resume operations on the 26th
During the meeting, which also included the participation of Turismo Lanzarote, the councilor also announced that Jet2, the main tour operator in our first market, “has directly conveyed to us its confidence and maximum interest in being able to resume operations with the island from September 26, the date that this British group has marked to restart its flights with the Canary Islands”.
In this sense, it was positively assessed that in these days the Government of the United Kingdom has shown itself willing to relax its initial position in the face of the pandemic, considering the possibility of differentiating by regions and even by islands, and not by countries, when drawing up the so-called green lists of safe destinations, or reducing quarantines from 14 to 7 days. The intention shown by Germany to eliminate its general recommendation not to travel to risk areas, within which Spain is included, without excluding the Canary Islands, and to opt for analyzing the situation country by country from September 30 was also commented on.
Ángel Vázquez considers these changes in the initial positions “encouraging” in view of the winter tourist season, but for this both the president and the councilor reiterate the need for the infection rate to decrease significantly, so they appeal “to individual responsibility and public awareness to prevent the spread of the virus”.
In this sense, the president of the Cabildo announced that from the first island institution, under the coordination of Turismo Lanzarote, a specific communication plan is planned to be launched aimed at raising public awareness, the set of actions of which will be announced in the coming days.
