Ibiza wants to be the first place in Europe to welcome visitors with a vaccine passport

Ibiza wants to be the first place in Europe to welcome visitors with a vaccine passport.

We previously reported that Spain is working with the EU on a vaccine passport but now the country has announced that it will run its own vaccine passport pilot scheme, which has full support from local authorities in Ibiza, as well as the rest of Balearics, who are raring to welcome tourists this summer.

Read this next: Will Ibiza open this year? Everything we know so far

The Mirror reports that Ibiza and the Balearics have been putting pressure on the Spanish government to start a vaccine passport test scheme and that Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto has confirmed that the country wants "to have a wide variety of tools to reactive mobility."

The news comes after Spain announced it would push ahead to open safe travel corridors with the UK in the absence of an official EU plan for the reintroduction of safe international travel.

Read this next: The best films about Ibiza

Speaking during a recent presentation about the Spanish travel industry, Maroto said: “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."

“We have created an inter-ministerial commission presided by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to facilitate the use of digital Covid certificates and be able to launch a pilot project to test their efficiency when the pandemic allows us to.”

Read this next: The history of Ibiza in 100 tracks

Spain's economy relies largely on international tourism and the UK makes up a large percentage of its visitors.

Secretary of State For Tourism Fernando Valdes recently said that “the way to allow travel in Europe must be decided at the level of the European Union but if those decisions cannot be taken, we will think of other solutions such as corridors, green corridors with third countries that can help us to restart tourist flows.”

Draft legislation for a vaccine passport will be published by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on March 17.

Here's everything we know about the Ibiza 2021 season so far.

Read this next: Get the best of Mixmag direct to your Facebook DMs