Yahoo News Travel updates: Spanish Tourism Minister delivers blow to Britons' summer holiday hopes
Spain’s Tourism Minister has left the hopes of thousands of Britons yearning to return to the Costas in tatters today when she said the UK’s coronavirus infection rate “still had to improve” before they’d be allowed to visit.
The country is preparing to open its borders, welcome international tourists from certain countries, and drop the current 14-day quarantine rule from July 1. But the odds of Britons being allowed in by then time now looks even less likely as the UK death toll rose by 215 on May 30, compared to four in Spain on the same day.
“For us it is important to guarantee that people arrive healthy and leave healthy,” Tourism Minister Maria Reyes Maroto told Spanish media. She confirmed that Germany and Nordic countries such as Norway and Denmark look likely to be the first to be welcomed back to Spain. “At this moment, their epidemiological situations are very good,” she said.
Meanwhile on home soil, The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is under pressure today to reinstate lifeguards on British beaches after a number of incidents have led to fears more lives could be lost on the nation's coastline.
An air ambulance was called to Durdle Door in Dorset after three people injured themselves whilst jumping off the top of the beach’s ancient limestone arch, which reaches 200ft – an activity widely known as tombstoning yesterday.
Today, despite the Dorset Council closing roads to Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door, erecting signs and tweeting “please AVOID the area”, it was busy with visitors again.
