THE UK government has announced the new travel restrictions which will require arrivals from 30 countries to quarantine at a hotel which includes Portugal, South America and South African nations.
However, this will be at the expense of the traveller. Here is what travellers can expect if being forced to stay at a quarantine hotel.
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How much will a quarantine hotel cost?
This is yet to be revealed but is thought to cost on average about £600 for 10 days.
However, Australia and New Zealand, which already have the restrictions in place, cost up to £1,600 per person to quarantine at the hotel for two weeks.
What is included at the quarantine hotel?
All guests will not be allowed to leave their rooms, with three meals delivered to their doors every day as well as clean sheets and towels.
Coronavirus tests will also be expected from guests but it is not clear if this will be included in the price.
Full list of countries where all arrivals have to quarantine at a UK hotel
- Angola
- Argentina
- Bolivia
- Botswana
- Brazil
- Cape Verde
- Chile
- Colombia
- Democratic Republic of Congo
- Ecuador
- Eswatini
- French Guiana
- Guyana
- Lesotho
- Malawi
- Mauritius
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Panama
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Portugal (including Madeira and the Azores)
- Seychelles
- South Africa
- Suriname
- Tanzania
- Uruguay
- Venezuela
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
How will the quarantine hotels work?
Prime Minister Boris Johnson explained: "They will be met at the airport and transported directly into quarantine.
“The Department of Health and Social care is working to establish these facilities as quickly as possible.”
Chief executive of Best Western hotels group Rob Paterson said that hotels could see guests confined to their rooms, with no visitors and with three meals delivered every day to the doors.
He said: "From the hotels' perspective, we would have to treat each of these customers as Covid-positive, so we would have to have strong infection control and protocols around security in the hotel to ensure we can deliver safely.
"We deliver three meals per day to the door which the occupant comes out and collects those meals and then cleaning is clean sheets and towels waiting outside the room for the person to safely dispose of their previous sheets and change their own to keep the safety and infection protocols high."
He said the whole experience would be "highly contactless and quite sterile" with dirty laundry left in bags, separate from the rest of the linens and clothes.
Other restrictions could include CCTV and rooms supervised by private security guards.
Which hotels will be part of the quarantine hotel restrictions?
This is yet to be confirmed by the government but it was revealed that talks were in place with IHG Group who owns Holiday Inns.
PC Agency's Paul Charles has warned that the government needs to give an end date to the quarantine hotel restrictions or the UK faces being cut off for up to a year.
He told Sun Online Travel: “We need the government to put an end date on these measures – what is the exit plan and roadmap for coming out."
“But we need to see an exit plan, otherwise people wouldn’t have confidence to book summer holidays and there is a danger these policies would stay in place for several months.
“But the fear and concern is these would last longer than March.
“That's why we need an end date and to know what the criteria is for ending the scheme, otherwise Britain could be disconnected from the world for a year or more, which is really what's happening in Australia.”
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