The Future of Packed Tourist Towns

virus news today. Europe is facing a resurgence of coronavirus infections, but the region's leaders don't have much appetite to return to the stringent restrictions on movement that helped control the pandemic in March and April. On Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged European leader's stork together to avoid reviving lockdowns, calling instead for unified action. The uptick in cases in recent weeks has been blamed on social gatherings and travelers.

Targeted containment measures like clamping down on nightclubs and mandating masks have yet to show much of an effect. Hong Kong will kick off a campaign to test its entire population for the novel coronavirus on September one. It's the first such effort attempted outside of mainland China. Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lamb said the mass testing blitz will last as long as two weeks and will be aided by China. Unlike similar drives in the Chinese cities of

Wuhan and Dalian, this will be voluntary. Finally, economist Nuriel Roubini said today that the global economy faces a risk of a slow recovery or even another slump unless a vaccine is found. Speaking on Bloomberg Television, Rubini predicted that the shape of the recovery, which some predicted to be a V a sharp uptick after a sharp drop, could take the shape of a U or even a W. He's stressed that finding a vaccine and more government stimulus

is necessary for a strong recovery. Rubini is famous for having predicted in two thousand six the collapse of the housing market in the US and now for today's main story. One thing the pandemic seems to have rendered obsolete, at least for now, is mass tourism. Beach towns lined with hotels that boast hundreds of rooms are struggling in a socially distanced age. One tourist hotspot in Spain that once drew throngs of young people is trying to reinvent itself

for a future of tightly controlled and intimate trips. Jeanette Newman reports the sound of summer. Those waves are rolling onto a beach in Benny Dorm, a town on Spain's Mediterranean coast, from June to August. Year after year, there's barely a free inship sand to be found on this beach. Sunbathers lineup towel to towel for miles. Crowds swell up and down the beach front promenade. Skyscraper hotels crammed with

hundreds of thousands of visitors tower overhead. The cityscape is the iconic image of the summer high season in Europe. Even though many people, particularly in the US, I've never heard of Benny Dorm, It's among the most popular destinations in Spain. That's no small feet. Spain is one of the most visited countries in the world. Benny Dorm started to become a hot spot decades ago. It was among the initial destinations in Europe for package holidays affordable trips

abroad organized by a travel agent. Since then, Benny Dorm has become a mecca of mass tourism. More than four million people visit the town's beaches and bars every year. Most of them are from Spain and Britain and stuff. So it's just st play cricket, got lack an end of seasons ship, you come, just lots and stuff so. Chris Ward is a twenty five year old from Leeds, England. On a recent summer afternoon in Benny Dorm, he and his friends shown O were sipping a pint at the

Crown Pub. Chris has been to Benny Dorm more than a dozen times for bachelor parties and end of season trips with his cricket and rugby teams. He says it's a unique and crazy place. I don't I don't know, you can't describe it. I always say there's there's there's loads of places it well that's look better than Benny Dorm. But there's no where I've been that's like Benny Dom, you know what I mean. It's I don't know, it's just it's just not there's just you say things that

you'll never say anywhere at else, Chris laughed. He declined to elaborate. What happens in Benny Dorm. Apparently stays in Benny Dorm. It was shown his first time here during a pandemic. I knew it's a little bit same, but I think I quiet like there's like it's been quite chilled out where less. There's not as many peoples this summer in Benny Dorm, As in so many places around the world, there's space where there used to be crowds, silence, when there used to be sounds and caution and angst

instead of freewheeling abandoned. To ensure social distancing on Benny Dorms, Levantevitch officials have marked off large squares in the sand with blue rope. Each space can hold a maximum of four people. Sunbathers have to reserve in advance. Many of the spaces remain vacant because a crowded bats and everybody has in their mind these simities. But now as you can't see, it is a very organized feet. Everybody needs

to know where they must go. That's Larry Bilbao. She's the director of the city's tourism board looking out over Levante Beach. Larry tells me that many other cities haven't put in place similar safety measures during a pandemic. She says, Benny Dorm had to defy a stereotype, otherwise it would risk an outbreak and even more people would steer clear with this. With this situation, you can see that everybody

is happy and everybody is in the area. Since it reopened in Midsummer, there's been on average seven thousand people on the beach each day. That compares to twenty people in normal times. Some people in Benny Dorm's tourism industry told me that those norm more times will eventually return once there's a vaccine. Levante Beach will once again have twenty five thou sun bathers, bars will go back to being jam packed, and tourism in the city will once

again be in mass. Others, though, I think the crisis has changed us. Ramon Martinez and his family owned four hotels in Benny Dorm. Even when we have a vaccine, he thinks many people will still crave more space than before. We know that is coming. A lot of change, for example, in in our hotels. Like I told you before, the maximum people in one room is too passion. Ramon is renovating two of his hotels. He plans to build only double rooms. That's a shift for many Benny Dorm hotels.

Their business models about volume, attracting a lot of lodgers. By offering affordable rooms, clients get a discount, for example, when they had an extra bed in the room, so three people stay in a double room and four in a triple. That appeals to friends keen to cut down on the cost of a weekend away, or to families with children. Ramon's renovation to right size his rooms is going to take a couple of years. Right now, he has his hands full managing his hotels during a pandemic.

Ramon has outfitted the entrance to his Hotel Presidente with mats that are coded and disinfectant. Thermographic cameras discreetly scan the reception area. They're looking for anyone with a temperature. Using artificial intelligence, the cameras can also detect if someone isn't wearing a face mask. So far, Ramon says that hasn't been a problem. Everyone is wearing the mass so I mean the movery important thing is that you wear

your marks. We can do everything you want. We can put everything but your mass and you if you are crazy, we can we can knock it to at least. If Ramon sounds a little muffled, it's because he himself was wearing a mask while we were speaking. Visitors to Benny Dorm say they welcome all the safety measures. In some ways, though, the measures to control the masses in hotels and on the beaches are responding to a problem that doesn't exist. There are no crowds. Benny Dorm feels empty occupancy, and

Ramon's hotel Bresidente is around. Normally it would be around full. Ramon and others had been expecting this summer to be bad, but then it got worse. In mid July, coronavirus cases started to rise again in Spain. The UK ordered British travelers who returned from Spain to self quarantine for two weeks. The news hit Benny Dorm particularly hard. Around of visitors to the city are from the UK. Cancelations overwhelmed the

city's hotels. The surprise announcement also caught some British residents mid vacation, including Bernie Schroka and her brother John Kelly. They were having one of their final pints in a Benny Dorm bar earlier this summer, preparing to head back to England to self quarantine. Well, it's off because we wouldn't come out. Does a quarantine got it back? You know? Yeah about it? Yeah. Bernie is a teacher and doesn't

start working until the fall. The quarantine won't disrupt her plans too much, but John works in maintenance at a hospital. His two week absence will leave the place a bit short staffed. They both say they're frustrated the quarantine order was a surprise, but they understand that the pandemic makes everything less certain. Now I've been coming to bant down Snow I've never seen as I've never seen a discore. Does it make you, does it make the vacation less enjoyable?

Or how does it change for us? I'll just go sorry for them that are working, you know, they happen to opay and it's to us here and the expense they must be going. It's a sign of the times for the world's battered tourism industry. Music blaring at two people sitting in a near empty bar. Benny Dorm is trying to adapt while the city awaits for the masses to return. There might confordulate it probably would help you, but that it might mean it s Risto. That was

Jeanette Newman, and that's it for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one bureaus around the world, visit bloomberg dot com slash Coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by to for four or Hez, Jordan Gospoure, Magnus Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was

reported by Jeanette Newman. Original music by Leo Sidran. Our editors are Francesco Levi and Rick Shine. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.