UK citizens can travel to Spain without facing quarantine from Sunday

UK citizens can travel to Spain from Sunday without facing Covid-19 quarantine, Spain's foreign minister has announced.

Spain had threatened to impose a quarantine on UK visitors if the UK imposed a quarantine on Spanish citizens travelling to the UK.

However, the Spanish government appears to have rowed back, now inviting UK citizens to visit.

Those travelling from the UK will need to register to allow the Spanish government to trace them.

Spain’s Foreign Minister, Arancha Gonzalez said: "We will allow British visitors just like the rest of the EU to come to Spain freely and without the need for quarantine. There will be a triple-check for their origin, temperature and we’ll ask everyone to register so we can trace them.

“We’re discussing with the UK authorities to see if they would do the same on their side, we nevertheless are doing this out of respect for the 400,000 British citizens that have a second residence in Spain and are dying to benefit from their homes in our country.

“We do hope they (the UK Government) will be sensitive to the 250,000 Spaniards that are also living in the UK and would like to enter the UK without a quarantine.”

But without the Government setting up a so-called air corridor with Spain, anyone returning from a trip there would still have to quarantine for 14 days.

The UK and Spain are still in talks as to whether Spanish visitors to the UK will need to quarantine.

Tourism generates 12% of Spain’s GDP and supports 2.6 million jobs.

In Spain’s Balearic and Canary Islands, however, the dependence on tourism jumps to over 30% of their economies.

Competing with other European countries that are similarly desperate to fill their hotels, museums and tourist sites, Spain’s government announced a 4.2 billion euro aid package for its tourism industry on Thursday.