Light at the end of the Covid borders

Fernando Silva, a lawyer from Gijón, does not see the time that November arrives, when he will fly to Ethiopia to photograph the indigenous ethnic groups surrounding the course of the omo river.He has not traveling twenty months and climbing the walls.He has completed the complete vaccination pattern and is pertrected against malaria.Ethiopia, in return, asks for a negative PCR to enter the country and another before returning.It's not always easy.Countries like China or Thailand demand inasumable quarantine periods for those who have two weeks of vacation.The first also requires self -confinements at source and PCR certificates issued in authorized medical centers in its embassy.Australia, Japan, Argentina or Vietnam have closed their borders, while Turkey demands an Hes code to go from stores - Imagine go to Istanbul and return without knowing the great bazaar - or Israel a serology at the Ben Gurion airport.

The announcement by the Biden Administration that will allow from November the entry of Europeans whenever the vaccination pattern has meant has meant an oxygen ball for the business sector and holiday trips, which expect this initiative to serveas an example to other countries that maintain their borders closed to relax once and for all their restrictions.

A desire that César Gutiérrez Calvo, president of the Federation of Territorial Associations of Travel Agencies (Fetave) shares, confident that the step that the United States has promised to help redirect the situation.«People have not taken fear of traveling, what they have is uncertainty.The restrictions are very variable and one does not want problems when 5.000 kilometers from home ».

The manager, yes, wrinkles when they talk about recovery.The sector comes from fitting a severe varapalo -half of the employees in ERT.«We talk about 15% of those registered in 2019, and that because we have been able to move in the EU field.The rest has disappeared from the scene ».

Europe, says Gutiérrez Calvo, is the destiny that will previously come out "because it is the one that inspires the most confidence".And not only for a matter of proximity or healthcare level.In other words, it is not the same to travel in Spain, where the vaccination level is 77%, than to do it for Morocco (50%), Dominican Republic (47%) or Egypt (4.76%).Even in the US, where search engines reveal an enormous interest in traveling, only 56% of the population and the delta variant have been sweeping are sweeping.Thus, the expert predicts that mobility by Europe will recover prepandiness levels by 2023, while the rest of the world will not, and that hopefully, up to two years later ».

In that 'rest' there are Argentina -now closed to lime and song and as the United States with plans to open -and also the Caribbean, where the situation is very changing -it messed Cuba prohibited the entrance to Spaniards, while the Dominican Republic, theneighboring island, I only asked the PCR-, followed by Vietnam or Indonesia in Asia.Those located in worse position are, without a doubt, Brazil, whose management of the pandemic has left much to be desired, or the destinations called 'exotic' such as Tanzania, Kenya or Benín.

But trips are not only for pleasure and those of company represent the Spanish export and import sap.According to a McKinsey study, all together contribute to a third of Spanish GDP.Alicia Estrada, head of Marketing of Gebta, knows it very well, something like the employer of the business travel agencies, to which the COVID has forced "reinventing itself in a changing scenario where the slogan was to guarantee mobility even when theAir companies had left most of their fleets on land ».

First when only companies of essential sectors (gas, electricity, oil, banking) could travel;then when he authorized to do so for essential reasons -which is not the same -, which also demanded to prove it.«A situation that lasted ten months, with each country imposing its own requirements.Holland, a vital 'hub' in communications with Asia, came to ask for antigens 4 hours before entering the country.Or United Kingdom, where Brexit has complicated everything.Not to mention the unheard of falsifications of PCR detected ».A situation that was not mitigated until the entry into force of the vaccination certificate, although even then episodes such as the 'fifth wave' and traffic lights translated into setbacks for Spain.

How to overcome adversity?Many times apart from commercial flights, "putting according to three or four companies and holding your own planes," explains Estrada.Or as the case of Cuba or Venezuela, resorting to repatriation flights, "that you will not find on websites such as Atrápalo, but of those that inform us of the companies that have free places, or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs".Also private jets when you have to move ten managers for a working meeting, although the model here is not yet mature.

Estrada has faced truly bizarre situations.There goes one: Spanish company with four Argentine workers in South Africa to whom you want to take back their country.«A Spaniard will not prevent him from entering Spain, but there are no flights between the cape and Buenos Aires and there were intermediate countries that did not let them set their foot.Those who, could change their mind tomorrow, and the same thing happened with the restrictions.In addition, it is not enough to find flights, but the connections are made in the shortest possible temporal frame, because if they exceed 12 hours the country stops considering it a scale and everything is even more complicated.A month we took us to fit the pieces, and those interested three days of flight, passing through Amsterdam, Brazil, Uruguay and even Argentina by road, to hug their own ».Of madness, let's.

This hill has caused that since March 2020 business trips have collapsed at underground levels.Marcel Forns, general director of Gebta, figure this recovery, "real but slow", in 50% compared to 2019 levels.A calculation, yes, founded on "the operations carried out at the national level, while the intereuropean trips still experience a shy rebound and the intercontinental ones remain unemployed".

Your concern is justified.They have been enough for a few months for the business world to rediscover the importance of rubbing, face to face.Simón Pedro Barceló said this week in a forum organized by the CEOE, when he warned that "technology must be a complement and not a substitute for face -to -face", to which he attributed four out of five agreements achieved."The achievement of objectives is much easier when there is personal contact than a videoconference for Skype," explains Estrad".

It is signed by Jaime Hernani, director of Spanish export associations, whose agenda gradually recovers vital constants.Last week he attended the first face -to -face international fair that hosts Spain since the health emergency broke out.That contest will be followed in Madrid from the fruit and vegetable sector, another in Agricultural Machinery Bologna, and two more in November: Abu Dhabi, the first appointment that canceled the Covid, and Antalya, in Turkey in Turkey.

"In this country we only talk about bars, but exporters have spent nineteen months in the dry dock".A drama, qualifies, that has interrupted the promotional work of trade abroad and convulsed the sector.Hernani does not want to hear about virtual meetings, "that they will never generate," he says, "the same degree of confidence as a handshake" and applaud ads such as the United States.«Imagine a Spanish entrepreneur with machinery in California, who can only take care of its maintenance if he sends to his teams before passing through a third country to pass the quarantine.Is unassumable ».Expects the announcement to mean the light at the end tunnel and not a truck that comes from the front.