Wednesday, April 15, 2020 - 09:36 Carmen Gomez

No gain without pain

Remember the days when in every broadcast on Spanish TV there was the inevitable section dedicated to the millions of tourists who were coming to their shores and how the occupancy of hotels were full etc etc?

This, apart from which they were constantly thinking of new venues to attract even more tourists, in the night time say; to the point that in some capitals, saturated with tourists; the citizens were up in arms because they had no quality of life in their daily comings and goings; what with hordes of tourists descending on them with their cameras and their electrical gadgets on hire to get around, crowding their pavements; and goodness knows what else.

I read that one of several analyses of why Italy had been so hard hit, was put down to them having a higher number of domestic and foreign travellers, who could transmit illnesses every year. This is supposedly the prize that Spain too has sadly had to pay, for the excess of tourism they were welcoming to their shores. Having said this, and even with the grimness of their situation, I doubt that this will make any difference to them. Their President has already said that when they come out of this they will be as strong or stronger, than they were before.

Having come out of this pandemic which hopefully will be sooner than later, no doubt they will start their aggressive marketing in the tourist sector once more, in order to make up for what they have lost during all this time.

Little or nothing will have changed in their attitude or outlook. Spain’s tourism sector is high on their agenda as it not only brings them huge financial gains, but employment too in the leisure industry.