When someone starts a trip, it usually ends at the supermarket. Because more is currently not possible because of the corona virus. Far-reaching exit restrictions condemn many people to self-isolation. Travel and vacation are therefore out of the question. Of course, this hits the tourism industry particularly hard. But need makes you inventive and solidary, as these stories prove.
When hoteliers get vacation feelings
"If this virus wave is over, we will definitely come back!" Optimism is a rare commodity in times of the corona crisis. Stephan Gander, marketing expert and tourist expert from South Tyrol, can still get something positive out of the virus. After the shutdown, he quickly declared his family hotel a refuge for his own family. Where the guests used to eat their meals, the children are now pushing the school desk at home. The hotel kitchen becomes the focal point of the family, where the kitchen chefs normally conjure up, the family is now swinging the wooden spoon.
Deceleration is the key word. The standstill gave the family the chance to enjoy their own hotel: "For the first time in our lives, we here in Trafoi also got holiday feelings," explains the owner of the "Bella Vista" hotel.
Hotels become a dorm
Other hotel owners do not put their family in the empty rooms, but offer accommodation to employees of the health system. Just like the former English football professional Gary Neville (45): the former kicker is a hotel owner and provides 176 beds for the NHS (state health system in Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and other medical personnel. "Last week we consulted with Greater Manchester health services, and in particular with the Manchester University National Health Services Foundation Trust," said the former Manchester United defender in a video on Twitter.
Chelsea recently announced a similar move. The Blues want to make the club's Millennium Hotel on Stamford Bridge available to NHS staff for two months.
Spanish hotels admit Corona patients
The managers of 14 hotels in the Balearic Islands have agreed to accept Corona patients if necessary. This emerges from a communication from the BOE (Law and Official Journal of the Spanish state). There are six of these hotels in Mallorca, four in Ibiza, three in Menorca and one in Formentera. A congress hotel in Palma had previously been converted into a hospital.
Postcards of hope in Rimini
Back in Italy: The fact that public life is currently on a break is a problem for many people in Italy. After all, parents have to look after their children in the home office because of the school closings. And because they belong to the risk groups, "nonna" and "nonno" cannot take care of the "bambini" either. Helping hands can work wonders. In Rimini, for example, where some locals do what usually only tourists do: they send postcards.
On them read: "It is the little things, the everyday actions of ordinary people, that keep the darkness at bay. Simple deeds of kindness and love. We give you our time, citizens of Rimini. Can we do something for you? Everything will be fine." So if you need help, be it shopping or something else, you can contact three of the authors who left their mobile number on the postcards.
Between floods of cancellation, toilet paper mountains and a sea of worry, we should look up and also see the positive that the virus has brought us: solidarity, cohesion and a bit more humanity.