Every day lost to COVID-19 for Europe's tourism hotspots matters.

Travel restrictions so necessary to control the pandemic have savaged an industry which usually delivers 10 percent of the continent's gross domestic product and attracts 360 million international arrivals annually.  

German-based tourism operator TUI, Europe's biggest, is losing $250 million a month to debt and customer refunds.

As temperatures warm, the European Commission announced plans on Wednesday to tentatively reopen internal borders and restart travel, with hundreds of millions of holidaymakers and temporary workers alike desperate to awaken the continent's sleeping giant for the summer season.

"Our thoughts are now turning toward summer and to the places that we love to travel," said Margrethe Vestager, a Commission deputy. 

Though summer holidays in some countries may be possible, the whole experience will look vastly different.

At the airport

Expect to queue. The Commission's latest guidelines encourage airports, with many carrying out temperature checks on passengers in both departures and arrivals, to install dedicated lanes to separate passenger flows. 

Further measures include the regular disinfecting of surfaces, requesting contactless check-in wherever possible, physical distancing at security and baggage drop-off and pick-up, plus the removal or rearrangement of benches or tables to avoid the congregation of people.

Requesting passengers to arrive earlier than the current two hours before departure time is also being considered.

Ryanair, Europe's biggest budget airline, will also require passengers in July and August to provide details of their address while visiting another EU country. That information will then be passed on to governments to help monitor isolation regulation.

Heathrow airport, Europe's busiest, is trialing contactless thermal imagining cameras to monitor passengers in immigration halls without the need for queues. 

It is also trialing ultraviolet lighting to sanitize security trays and contact-free screening equipment to reduce person-to-person contact.

Lifting restrictions will prove much harder than installing them because each country has implemented slightly different measures beyond central directives.

Arrivals between the UK and France, for example, are exempt from a 14-day quarantine, despite the former only having recently introduced such measures.

"If we need this, we should apply it on a blanket basis," John Strickland, an independent air transport consultant, told CGTN.

"Who's going to go on holiday if they have to go into a 14-day quarantine on return?"

On Wednesday, the European Commission suggested a three-phase approach to reopening borders between countries with "similar overall risk profiles" could go ahead.

The measures are, as yet, non-binding but some states had already taken matters into their own hands. 

Leaders from Austria, Greece, Israel, Norway, Denmark and the Czech Republic have already met twice to discuss easing restrictions between them and create 'tourism safe zones.' 

READ MORE: 'Struggling for survival': Air travel boss says industry is in peril

On Friday, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia will reopen their borders to each other to create a "travel bubble." Germany and Austria plan to reopen their borders, the latter relying heavily on German tourists, on 15 June.

This all remains, however, a divisive subject.

"We will not accept bilateral accords within the European Union that might create privileged tourist channels," Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said this week. 

On the airplane

Some airlines have already announced their own in-flight rules. In addition to asking passengers to take their own temperatures at home before flying in July and August, Ryanair will also require the wearing of facemasks onboard and has banned queueing for the toilets. Passengers have to ask to use the facilities.

All the airline's aircraft will be deep-cleaned every evening with chemicals that will last longer than 24 hours. 

Regulators are to outline universal protocols in the coming weeks, but will likely include recommendations for hospital-grade air filtering and vertical airflow to be introduced to cabins and a reduction of movement onboard. Meals should also be pre-ordered at the time of booking.

Public health will be a priority.

"Our first statistics show that onboard, there are very few contamination cases, and that we can set up measures to protect passengers from any contamination," Alexandre de Juniac, the CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), tells CGTN.

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De Juniac also stressed that not selling the center seat to adhere to social distancing measures would not make financial sense, but may be contemplated in the early stages of the restart to encourage growth.

"If you neutralize the center seat on each part of the aisle in the aircraft, you neutralize more than a third of the seats and you do not make any money, so I admit that it's impossible economically to operate these aircraft," he said.

He added, however: "I think we can find the right compromise."

At the destination

Hub airports, IATA and the European Union want to establish a common health standard across the world for air travelers, so there is no confusion surrounding potential quarantines when travelers reach their destination.

"The key issue is whether passengers will be allowed into the country they're going and whether they'll be allowed back again," said John Holland Kaye, Heathrow airport's chief executive, at a UK parliament select committee. 

Away from the airport, there are further calls for a common approach from all European states to coronavirus safety measures in hotels, outdoor shops and the hospitality sector. 

"We're asking governments to embrace our protocols and help us in a coordinated way," Gloria Guevara, CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council, told CGTN.

The more aligned the measures - from social distancing to wearing a facemask and even a ban of hotel breakfast buffets because germs spread readily at them – the more likely tourists would be to follow them. 

"That will help us bring confidence to travelers and help us grow faster," Guevara added.

READ MORE: Deserted beaches in Spain as tourism crippled by coronavirus

Thierry Breton, the EU's internal marketing commissioner, has called for a "Marshall plan" for funds from the bloc's stimulus packages to be made available to hotels, restaurants and tour operators to bounce back from the crash.

Greece is trying to get ahead of the curve. Tourism accounts for 20 percent of GDP, plus nearly a quarter of all workers, and the country is desperate to start attracting some of the record 33 million arrivals it recorded last year. With just 152 coronavirus deaths after an early lockdown, it has already sent the EU a plan of how it hopes to reopen for foreign tourists by 1 July.

On the island of Santorini, meanwhile, beach bar owner Charlie Chahine has installed plastic guards around sunbeds to help install confidence that holidaying is safe.

"If this is what people's safety depends on, such a construction or any such construction - we (just) want to work, we want to get going," he told Reuters.

It isn't just hotspots around the Mediterranean trying to stimulate the industry. Dutch restaurant ETEN in Amsterdam has repurposed the greenhouses in which it usually grows vegetables to trial a classy outdoor dining experience for up to three people.

Waiters wear gloves and face shields and use a long board to bring dishes into the glass cabins to ensure minimal physical contact with customers. Restaurants are due to open to the public on 19 May in the Netherlands.

"We are now learning how to do the cleaning, how to do the service, how to get the empty plates out again in an elegant way, so you still feel taken care of nicely," said owner Willem Velthoven, but early feedback has been positive.

The more lockdowns are eased across Europe, the more an industry defined by ingenuity will try to emerge with renewed dynamism. 

It may have a different feel, but it will still be a holiday.

Video editing: Natalia Luz. Graphics: James Sandifer

Check out The Pandemic Playbook, CGTN Europe's major investigation into the lessons learned from COVID-19