‘I’m happy just to be with them again’: Families reunite but tourists stay away as Italy reopens its borders

Coronavirus has dealt the country’s tourism sector a heavy blow – which accounts for 13% of GDP – but the hope is that tourists will now come in time for the summer season, Federica Marsi reports from Milan

Families reunite at at Rome's Fiumicino airport (AP)

Italy has reopened travel between regions as well to and from European countries, in a bid to lure tourists back in time for the summer season. This next phase marks an important milestone for a country where the virus walloped communities, killing over 33,000, and sent the economy into a tailspin.

While restrictions on the 26 Schengen countries, the UK, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Andorra and Monaco have been lifted, Milan’s once-bustling Malpensa airport still counted as few as nine international and 15 domestic incoming flights on Wednesday. Rather than the habitual beach goers, incoming planes disembarked passengers longing to reunite with their loved ones.

A flight from Doha, Qatar, was the final leg of a journey that repatriated Manuela Buzziol’s husband and son and ended an ordeal that lasted over two months. “They flew from Papua New Guinea to Australia, then to Qatar and then finally to Milan,” Buziol said with a sigh of relief.

Earlier attempts to leave Port Moresby – where Matteo, her husband, works in the humanitarian sector – had been thwarted by the pandemic. “We tried to book flights in April, then again in May, and finally today we succeeded,” the 44-year-old said.

At the departures gate, Antonella Sechi, 31, was boarding a flight home for a visit to her family in Cagliari, in the island of Sardinia. As Italy went into lockdown in March, her sister gave birth and Sechi is looking forward to holding the new-born in her arms for the first time.

“I will not take my face mask off and we have arranged for me to have my own separate space,” she said. “It will be strange not to be able to hug my family, but I’m happy just to at least be able to be with them again.”

In a telling sign of the slow pace of recovery, Linate’s city airport – a hub for low-cost airlines – was not reopened on Wednesday and air traffic remains confined to one of Malpensa’s two terminals.

While Italy lifted its restrictions, some European governments have effectively blacklist states badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, including Italy.

The foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, said Italy was being treated “like a leper colony” and warned that the EU unity would be at risk if countries did not agree on concerted action.

Tourism is a cornerstone of the Italian economy as it generates around 13 per cent of its GDP and employs around 15 per cent of its workforce. Confturismo, its tourism association, estimates Italy already lost 30 million tourists between March and May.

Monica Rossi, manager of Il Leccio resort in Portofino, in the heart of the Italian Riviera on the Ligurian coast, saw business shrink by 70 per cent due to the pandemic. Despite the reopening, she still hasn’t seen comforting signs of business picking up again.

A passenger has her temperature taken to check for symptoms of Covid-19 before boarding a train to Milan’s Central Station, (AP)

“Since last Monday, we have been receiving calls from potential customers enquiring about the activities they will be able to access and the measures we have put in place to limit contagion, but so far this hasn’t translated into new bookings,” she said.

However, she remained hopeful that her offer of private accommodations with an independent entrance and a limited number of guests per swimming pool will provide an enticing alternative to the beach.

It will be strange not to be able to hug my family, but I’m happy just to at least be able to be with them again.”

Antonella Sechi

Some Italian regional governors, including those of Sardinia and Campania, where the Emerald and Amalfi coasts and their glamorous vacation resorts are located, expressed concern over the free movement of residents from the hard-hit northern regions and briefly considered introducing health passports and a quarantine period.

Rossi said she did not dread the inflow of visitors from Lombardy – a region that recorded over 16,000 of the 33,000 deaths from coronavirus – as she believed many Milanese had already made a run across the border and to their holiday homes by the sea.

What she hoped for was “for the weather to be merciful”, as sporadic heavy showers over the past weeks have been yet another calamity for local businesses.

A car from Germany drives from Austria to Italy at the Brenner Pass boarder crossing (AP)

The Italian government bowed to pressure from owners and agreed to reopen bars, restaurants and beauticians on 18 May, brought forward from the start of June. The Italian GDP fell by 4.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2020 and some observers have predicted an even larger contraction of the economic activity in the current quarter that will hit the service sector particularly hard.

The prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, hailed the end of lockdown on 2 June as a “new beginning” for Italy, similar to that of 1946, when the country proclaimed itself a republic.

“We must all focus our efforts on standing up and starting again with renewed determination,” he wrote on his Facebook page, asking everyone to do their bit “as it has always been in the bleakest moments of our history”.