The government has designed a 'Safety Pack', which contains various measures to guarantee visitor safety and promote confidence in the Balearics as a tourist destination. The Monday visit to Berlin by President Armengol and others provided the opportunity to unveil this to the DRV travel association and to TUI.
Ahead of the visit, the tourism director general, Rosana Morillo, explained that an update would be given to German tour operators on all health coverage measures, "including the insurance policy for repatriation or return to the normal place of residence, as well as an interpreter service and compensation for an extended stay caused by Covid". The cost of all this, she said, "will be borne by the Aetib strategic tourism agency and will cover non-resident tourists in the Balearics who stay in regulated accommodation".
This latter point makes clear, therefore, that if tourists stay in unregistered accommodation, such as an apartment without a tourism ministry licence, the insurance will not be valid.
The policy provides free quarantine accommodation in so-called bridge hotels that the government has set up for tourists who develop mild Covid symptoms or are asymptomatic. An interpreter service will be available in English and German at least. In cases of death, the policy will cover these as well.
The Safety Pack also refers to the price cap for PCR and antigen tests (75 and 30 euros respectively) that the government has established and to the SafeBeach app that gives real-time information about beach capacity in six languages - Catalan, Spanish, English, German, French and Italian.
Greater detail regarding the insurance and information about medical resources and other issues will be made available on the illesbalears.travel website.
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So in effect the Tourist Tax money will be given back to the tourists.....
And what will be provided for all the hotel workers and locals who are infected with Covid from this group? Perhaps follow the Portuguese example and ramp up the vaccination programme?? It is the only way to open up safety for tourism. And to ensure the islands stay open and are not forced to close half way through the season. That would be a disaster. So much better to take the protect first option. If the Portuguese can go from the UK’s red to green classification it can be done.
This is wrong. Taxpayers money should not be used for the hoteliers benefit, - and that's all this is. There's enough for our government to spend our money on here where it's collected, - (we'll soon need to have tractors to drive around Palma Nova the way the roads are). Let any foolhardy tourists risk facing these costs themselves. Until we're all vaccinated and our daily new cases reduced there shouldn't be any tourism here anyway.