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· Around 50 hotel establishments in Seychelles are receiving visitors from seven special status countries since October 1 to ensure that there are fewer cancellations in bookings
· The special status countries are Italy, France, Germany, UK, Switzerland, Austria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
· Visitors from these countries will be allowed in Seychelles even if the intensity of the pandemic keeps changing
Around 50 hotel establishments in Seychelles are receiving visitors from seven special status countries since October 1 to ensure that there are fewer cancellations in bookings. The special status countries are Italy, France, Germany, UK, Switzerland, Austria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Visitors from these countries will be allowed in Seychelles even if the intensity of the pandemic keeps changing.
The tourism minister, Didier Dogley, said visitors from special status countries will have to produce a negative PCR test 48 hours before travelling as compared to 72 hours for permitted countries. Seychelles has constituted a forum for the implementation of the National Integrated Framework for the opening of Seychelles to commercial flights.
The visitors from these countries will have to stay in the category 2 hotels upon arrival and have to remain there for five days to be monitored by the trained staff of the hotel. On the fifth day, they will do a second PCR test. If the test is negative, they can leave the hotel premises. A category 2 hotel is a certified tourism establishment that has trained its staff for closely monitoring the visitors. France, the UK and the UAE, for the time being, are considered as high-risk countries. A hotel can be certified as both a category 1 that is welcoming guests form low-risk countries and category 2 for the high risk countries.
Four international airlines, Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, Edelweiss and Kenya Airways, are flying to Seychelles. British Airways will start operations to Seychelles on October 10, opening Seychelles further to Europe.
