Spain’s Ibiza Reveals Plans to Run Its Own Vaccine Passport Scheme for Travellers Worldwide

Even though many places in Europe plan to welcome vaccinated travellers from countries worldwide who own a vaccine certification, Ibiza plans to be the first one to do so.

With the full support of its local authorities, Ibiza plans to run its own vaccine certificate scheme to permit passengers from all over the world to visit the island by the summer, AtoZSerwisPlus.com reports.

Ibiza, as well as Balearics, have urged Spain’s government to introduce a vaccine certificate as soon as possible in order to help the tourism industry recover from the COVID-19’s devastating situation.

In this regard, Spain’s Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said that the country wants “to have a wide variety of tools to reactive mobility.”

 “We want to be pioneers, and we are the most active champions of digital vaccine passports to facilitate international mobility. We were pioneers with [last summer’s] Balearic travel corridor by becoming the only country to open during the pandemic, and we’re working on being pioneers again and putting our foot on the accelerator,” Maroto pointed out.

Spain’s Tourism Minister also highlighted that the country had created an inter-ministerial commission managed by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to ease the use of COVID-19 vaccination certificates and enable the launch of a pilot project in order to test their efficiency.

The news came after Spain recently announced that it seeks to create a vaccination passport for all travellers wishing to enter the country from the United Kingdom’s territory.

Spain’s government announced that in case the European Union fails to reach a joint agreement with the United Kingdom regarding the vaccination certificates, it will create a “green corridor” for all Britons who have taken the vaccine against the deadly virus. Such an announcement has been confirmed by the country’s Tourism Minister Fernando Valdes.

In January, Spain’s authorities declared that they would follow some European countries’ path and impose vaccination certificates to facilitate the travel process for all persons who have been vaccinated against the deadly disease.

However, such a plan it seems that its taking time to be revived, as recently Spain’s Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, called on the European Commission to accelerate the issuing of vaccination documents which, among other things, would help the safe restart of travel and the recovery of the tourism sector.

Still, the launching of vaccination documents any time soon would not help that much travellers as Spain’s government previously announced that it extended the current restrictions on non-essential travel until March 31 due to the rapid spread of the Coronavirus pandemic in other countries.

Last spring, when many European countries reported high numbers of COVID-19 infection, a European Union official warned that testing requirements and a vaccine passport would become mandatory in order to travel to Schengen countries.