Michael Collins from TravelMedia.ie interviews the Spanish Secretary of State for Tourism, Fernando Valdés on December 2nd 2021 at the UNWTO 24th General Assembly.
Fernando Valdés answers the following questions:
- Is Spain a safe destination for Irish tourists?
- What is Spain doing to help re-build airline connectivity?
- On the ground, what is Spain doing to help re-build tourism?
- October 2021 was a record month for tourism in Spain?
- Will Spain change its travel rules for tourists in 2022?
Michael Collins from TravelMedia.ie interviews the Spanish Secretary of State for Tourism, Fernando Valdés on December 2nd 2021 at the UNWTO 24th General Assembly.
About UNWTO:
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism.
As the leading international organization in the field of tourism, UNWTO promotes tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and environmental sustainability and offers leadership and support to the sector in advancing knowledge and tourism policies worldwide.
[ Ссылка ]
Video Transcript:
It is true in both cases. I mean, Spain, it is a safe destination. We've been saying it from the beginning of the pandemic and second, it is true that the Irish market, it is very important for us, especially if we try to talk in deseasonalize our high season. And for us Irish tourists, especially important in the Canary Islands and all the places in our vacational destinations. But we really appreciate all the quality that give us the Irish market. So if we take, first of all, if we take a look to how it's been evolving the pandemic since the beginning of these rough times, it was true that from the beginning, we knew that Spain has to give the sense that it can provide a safe tourist experience. That was something that we did right away, since the beginning of the pandemic, we put in place, all the needed protocols, all the needed measures in hotels, in restaurants, in all the complementary industry, tourism industry to just make tourists safe in Spain. And second, we want to give the impression that travel is safe. Again, our tourist web is safe travel because we need to give some certainty to the travelers. We, we need to give them the sense that there is nothing wrong to be traveling in these rough times. There is nothing dangerous to go on holidays. If you just take into considerations all the measures, all the proper, well, criteria that you need to know where you go and we've been trying to give that sense to Irish, to all the Irish tourists that they can come here and they know that they can be having some normality in their holidays and now again, to give them in this situation that, and I have to say that we are better now than we were some months ago. Ireland and Spain are one of the countries in the European Union with the highest vaccination rate. This has to give us that certainty, that safety that we need to enjoy our vacations. Because at the end, if we talk about tourism, it is about joy, it is about all those feelings, all those good feelings that your holidays, your staying can give you along the days. We, from the beginning, we knew that Spain, since it is seen the periphery of the EU, we rely on aviation, on airline travelers. We have much less travelers by car that the central European countries. So, we really need to recover that connectivity. So we was not only try to restore the routes that we have at the beginning, but also rethink how to increase the number of routes, so since the beginning, not only in the secretary of state of tourism, but also in collaboration with our colleagues in the ministry of transport, we are given, well, some new schemes to those airlines to at least restore and try to think on 2022, such as the year of the restortment of all airline connectivity, and to try to consolidate their bet on Spain, we've been discussing with airlines in Ireland with Ryanair and Aer Lingus as part of IG. So we really need to intensify not only the connectivity with our big destinations, but to integrate new destination, new routes that can give us, as I mentioned before, we really need to look forward in terms of diversity. We want to give Irish the chance to visit Spain all over the places and not only the destination that they already know, but we want them to know Granada, Cadiz, we want them to know Santiago, we want them to go to, as well to the Canary islands, the Balearic Islands, to Catalonia. So we really want them to know the diversity of our destinations and for that the airport and connectivity is going to be key. 3.4 billion euros that have to do with a new, well, frame of European funds that we all share or European members share. And what is, what are we thinking when we talk about that huge investment that we are going to put in place in the following three years, we need to think about the future of tourism...
