From Eiffel Tower to Leaning Tower of Pisa, Covid-19 measures at Europe’s tourist attractions make for a very different holiday
- As Europe’s tourism industry tentatively reopens, hotspots across the continent have introduced measures to minimise the risk of new outbreaks
- At Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa, visitors will be provided with electronic devices that vibrate if they get too close to one another
Anyone visiting the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which reopened on June 25, will have to take the stairs – all 674 of them – because the lifts are being kept shut at France’s iconic monument.
After months of lockdown many Europeans are dreaming of a summer holiday, but holidays will look a bit different this year. Breakfast buffets, guided tours and club nights may well be out; masks and temperature checks, meanwhile, are definitely in.
Tourist attractions, from Rome’s Colosseum to the Hermitage Amsterdam museum, have introduced a slew of measures to minimise the risk of a new outbreak of coronavirus, which has killed about 170,000 people in western Europe.
Countries like Italy and Spain, where tourism accounts for about an eighth of GDP, are desperate to lure back visitors as they scramble to salvage the summer season. But there are fears that a return to mass tourism could see a second spike in the pandemic.