Australia and New Zealand already have hotel quarantine restrictions in place, with travellers forced to isolate for two weeks before being allowed to leave.
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Quarantine hotels are expected to be introduced by the government later today which would require all passengers to isolate at a designated hotel at their own cost, expected to be as much as £1,600 per person.
Travellers are likely to be taken by bus along with the other passengers on the plane to the hotel, where they will remain until they stay out their quarantine.
Chief executive of Best Western hotels group Rob Paterson said that hotels would see guests confined to their rooms, with no visitors and with three meals delivered every day to the doors.
‘Three meals a day delivered to the door’
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.
Some hotels in New Zealand allow guests to walk around outside at designated times, but it is unclear if this would be the same for UK hotels.
What guest could expect
- Could cost up to £1,600 per person
- Police escort to hotel
- No visitors
- Three meals a day delivered to their door
- Private security supervising rooms
- CCTV watching those isolating
- Designated outside time
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POLICE ESCORT
Australian journalist Jade Barker revealed her experience when arriving in Perth in Australia and was forced to quarantine for 14 days.
She told Good Morning Britain: “Once you disembark the plane and you go through customs and passport control, collected your luggage, you’re then told which hotel you have been designated to and you are seated in the airport at a social distance from other passengers.
“You’re then taken in buses to your designated hotel which is escorted with a police escort and once you arrive there’s security guards and military personnel standing on guard as you socially-distanced and safely check in.
“Then once you arrive in your room, you close that door and that’s kind of it for the next two weeks.”
While she said she didn’t want to call it similar to prison, as it was a “more privileged position to be put in,” she did say that the conditions were “extreme”.
Australian tennis stars have been complaining about the food being delivered, with it being compared to airline meals with little fresh options.
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IHG Group, which owns Holiday Inn, is rumoured to be in talks with the UK government to offer hotels for the new quarantine scheme.
While some experts warn it could take weeks to set up the hotel quarantine protocol, Mr Paterson said they could open Great Westerns in just 48 hours with the new restrictions in place.
He said: “We are ready to go. We could turn this around in 24 to 48 hours in an open hotel and a bit longer for an unopened hotel because there are a few things that need to happen before the hotel can start trading or open and start operating.”
Covid quarantine hotel announcement TODAY to reveal plan to put UK travellers in mandatory isolation