ARCHIVED - Balearic Islands will accept tourists from within Spain without Covid test and with first jab from Sunday
Tourists from Spain will be able to travel to Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera in the Spanish Balearic Islands without a Covid test from Sunday, May 23.
National tourists will be able to holiday in the Balearic Islands from Sunday without a test so long as they have had at least one dose of Covid vaccine or live in a region with a cumulative incidence rate of less than 60 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
The regional president, Francina Armengol, said visitors from Spain's mainland will have to have received at least the first dose of vacacine 15 days before their trip to enter without having to present a negative test.
However, non-vaccinated tourists travelling from region's with a higher incidence of cases will have to present a test at the islands' ports and airports.
Until now, any passenger residing in another region had to carry a negative PCR to enter the Balearic Islands.
But under the new relaxed measures, unvaccinated domestic travelers will only have to present a negative antigen test and not a PCR, with the former being much cheaper.
"The Balearic Islands want to make a special invitation to national tourists to visit Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera this summer in order to reactivate the economy, particularly given the uncertainty of tourism international," said Armengol.
She stressed that the arrival of domestic travellers will be "extremely relevant" for the islands, whose two main markets are normally the UK and Germany.
The Balearic Islands are in Germany's 'green traffic light' of safe places, while the UK government has recommended 'staycations' as opposed to travelling to Spain and refused to authorise travel to regions or the offshore islands of the country, even though levels of covid are very low, insisting instead that the country as a whole must be classified as one; at the moment the classification is amber, which requires quarantine on return.
IMAGE: Mallorca Tourism