The Santos Bar, across from Cordova’s celebrated mosque, would normally be groaning with tourists tucking into its trademark Spanish tortillas. But with the coronavirus pandemic, “everything’s dead”, the owner says.
The Mezquita, an eighth-century mosque later turned into a cathedral, is the most visited site in the Andalusian town in southern Spain.
But since it reopened at the end of May, only 16,000 people have set foot in the UNESCO World Heritage site considered one of the most accomplished works of Moorish architecture — the number of visitors it would normally receive in a week.
“It will take months to make that up,” said church spokesman Jose Juan Jimenez Gueto, although money set aside in previous years means staff have been kept busy with restoration projects.
Nearby restaurants, hotels and shops are not so lucky, and many are closed.
At the Santos Bar, only owner Jesus Maldonado is working.
Business is “a quarter of the normal,” he said. Its 10 workers benefit from a publicly funded holiday program.
Immersion in tourism, a sector that accounts for 12% of the Spanish economy, will be seen as a severe blow.
While the country’s beaches are its biggest attraction, inland cities like Cordoba also attract tourists with their cultural sites.
And positions such as Granada, Toledo and Segovia are the maximum affected, according to the National Association of Hotels of Spain, with a drop in income of more than 50% for the restaurants and bars of its historic centers.
In Andalusia, the hotel occupancy rate is, on average, 25%, 10 percent less than in institutions along the coast, said Francisco de los Angeles Torre, head of the region’s hotel association.
He fears that Andalusian restaurants will have to lose up to a third of their staff.
– Non-Asian –
In Spain, the world’s number two tourist destination behind France, spending by foreign tourists has plunged by 62 percent in the first five months of the year compared with the same period in 2019.
In Ronda, the city on top of a mountain perched on a gorge known for its stone bridge, Maria Lara Galindo has worked as a consultant for Asian tourists for the following decade.
“For those serving Spanish tourists there is now some activity, but Asian tourists — nothing,” she said.
While Japanese and South Korean tourists can now make stopovers in the European Union again, Galindo does not expect them to return until next summer and believes they are most likely to do so separately than in groups.
Galindo is one of 500,000 self-employed workers in the Spanish tourism industry, whose federation fears that up to 100,000 more people will lose their jobs.
– Quiet Seville –
In Seville, foreign tourists are non-existent and even the Spaniards are few.
Jordi Reines, who works as a nurse in Barcelona, cancelled a trip to Portugal to spend his time in Andalusia.
“We don’t even think about taking a trip abroad,” said Noemi Garcia, Queens’ girlfriend.
Jose Romero, who owns a stand selling drinks and ice cream alongside the city’s central Spain Square, said sales are just a tenth of what they were last year.
“This year is a flood, other people are not confident enough to travel,” he said.
The dozen memories near him are still closed.
“Uncertainty and worry slow everything down,” said Isabel Diaz, who reopened her family’s fan shop after a four-month closure, something they were not even forced to do in Spain’s civil war in 1936-1939.
Reports of new epidemics are preventing others from leaving, said Celia Ferrero, vice president of the Autonomous Workers Association.
“Spending remains the surprise of the coronavirus and will remain so until there is a solution,” he said.