When the Covid-19 crisis began, I experienced – like most people, I suppose – feelings of fear and concern in the face of an unknown, highly contagious disease with very serious effects. This was the primary concern, the uncertainty of knowing what would happen to my family and me.

At the same time, as general manager of a hotel chain, I also had another great concern: closing the hotels in an orderly manner, ensuring the repatriation of clients and regulating the situation of our employees. Those were very difficult days for everyone. Seeing empty hotels in Benidorm or Benalmádena, streets without people, was impressive. In some hotels we didn’t even know how to close them, we didn’t have keys!

Of all these moments, what struck me the most was a sincere and spontaneous comment from an employee: “Are we going to reopen someday? Are all these foreigners coming back?”

It was a doubt that I had not had till that moment. It seemed clear to me that yes, that Covid would be a passing episode and that things would soon return to normal and I told him so.

During 2020 and much of 2021, I often remembered that conversation.

There were difficult times, months that seemed very long, but there were also reasons for optimism, especially with the advances in vaccines.

2021 was already a summer almost without fear of Covid, but still without foreigners. And without foreigners, we couldn’t talk about a normal season. The question was still valid: are the 80 million foreign tourists who visited Spain in 2019 going to return?

2022 has finally given us the answer. And this is, I think, the most important news of this summer: foreign tourists are back.

We have seen how the two years of Covid have caused dysfunctions in all sectors: logistical problems, shortages of goods, lack of staff, inflation, queues at airports… but, despite everything, foreign tourists have returned and the Spanish tourism has started up again, fully operational.

Some will rightly say that it has been launched in a negative context, of crisis, rising costs and war. But these problems will be resolved. When has the tourism industry not had problems or threats?

The important thing is that Covid has taught us many lessons, that we have learned them and that here we are again, open, without doors and without keys, offering magnificent holidays to the entire world population.

 

5/10/2022, Agustí Codina – General Manager at MedPlaya Management Services