Viva España: Bouncing back — & how!
SEVILLE, Spain — Our Globus tour director Luis recalls being on tour in the country mid-March 2020 when news of the first COVID case in Spain reached him. Like most of us who initially underestimated the ferocity of the virus, he and his group initially shrugged it off — till the numbers grew and grew.
Then one day at 3 a.m., he was roused by the hotel’s front desk manager who told him that members of his tour group, mostly Americans, were all in the lobby already! (Meeting time was 8 a.m., five hours later.) They were alarmed by the news that then President Trump was closing the borders to the United States. Even when it was clarified later on that the borders were only being closed to non-residents and non-citizens, everyone was scrambling to get a flight out and back to the US. As tour director, Luis helped them as best as he could and heaved a sigh of relief when all were home safe.
Then his personal nightmare began. Soon, he lost his income due to the fallout from COVID as he was a self-employed tour guide who depended on Spain’s robust tourism industry. Inbound tours were history. The world stopped spinning on its axis, it seemed, halted by the pandemic.
And then, a personal loss. His father, who was living in Portugal, passed away due to COVID. He had to obtain special permission to drive to Portugal.
The lockdown in Spain was very strict, with people having to show receipts of their purchases in supermarkets to evade arrest if caught on the streets. Eventually, those with pets were allowed to walk them twice a day. But the sacrifices as well as Spain’s high vaccination rate have paid off.
Spain is back in business! And how! Masks are no longer mandatory anywhere (except in our Vueling flight from Lisbon.)
In 2022, 71.6 million international tourists visited Spain. They spent on average more money (87 billion euros total!) and time in the country than before the COVID-19 pandemic, Spanish Trade and Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto was quoted by local media as saying this month.
“The expectations we had of recovering the majority of international tourists from before the pandemic have been fulfilled, but the most important thing is that spending and the average length of stay are growing…” the official added.
Tourism arrivals in Spain have always been staggering; they make tourism officials from all over the globe salivate. Statista reports that during most of the 2010s, Spain registered more than 100 million international visitors each year (that’s around the present population of the Philippines!) until reaching the record mark of 126.2 million in 2019. That latter figure represented more than 2.5 times Spain’s total population, which in that year added up to 47.4 million people. Tourism is, therefore, one of the major drivers of the Spanish economy. At the onset of the pandemic, international inbound tourism in the Spanish territory came to a halt for two months. A lot of Spaniards couldn’t keep up with their mortgages and saw their savings bottom out. Fortunately, they received a subsidy of about 400 euros to keep from going hungry. Luis had to pivot by creating videos of restaurants, first for 100 euros, till his services became sought after. The monthly average wage in Spain is around 1,300 euros but public education and medical care are free.
And then one day, “sunny Spain” started to see the sun again.
Good life
According to The Economist 2005 year list, Spain has the world’s 10th highest quality of life.
It is highly likely that well-meaning friends will warn you about pickpockets in Spain, especially Barcelona. But Mark, our Filipino tour guide (before our Globus tour), calmly told us to keep our belongings always within sight, and not to be frozen by fear every time we went out of our hotel. Luis said the same thing. “Having your phone in the back pocket if your pants is an invitation to a pickpocket.”
My own advice is to wear a cross-body or messenger bag, or even a belt bag.
Aside from having good bones, the effort the Spanish people undertook to preserve their sights and monuments — perhaps not knowing a thousand years ago that by doing so they were investing in their future —is their good fortune. The seventh-century mosque in Córdoba that became a Catholic church in the 13th century (it’s now the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption) is my Exhibit A. The Christians just added features of their faith into the former mosque, but kept it intact. In fact it is still also known as the “Mezquita de Córdoba.” There is unity in diversity.
My own heart bleeds when I think of our historical buildings in the Philippines that were willfully demolished, without thought to the toll they would exact from our national identity and heritage. Collectively, they could have been major tourism attractions. Imagine, a little Spain in Asia!
Our Globus Spain and Portugal Escape tour, thus called because it took place in a winter month, was indeed an escape to a world I thought I would never see again. The eight-day tour took us from Barcelona to Madrid, Córdoba to Sevilla and finally, Lisbon. Another plus of travelling in the winter (which I personally like because I can wear winter clothes for a change) is that it is relatively low tourist season so you don’t have to jostle for space for your IG moments! Our bus was disinfected every night for our peace of mind.
During the darkest days of the pandemic, I had often wondered if I would see the world again with my family without fear or paranoia, without checkpoints and mandatory swab tests (in July 2022 they were still required in some countries).
In the cold of winter 2023, the sun shone on my dreams again. The world has bounced back, indeed.
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