Cyprus is considering asking tourists to take a Covid-19 test prior to their arrival - with other proposals including disinfecting luggage, putting reception desks behind screens and dressing cleaning staff in full protective gear.
The country’s deputy minister for tourism, Savvas Perdios, said Cyprus will initially look to bring tourists from nearby countries that have managed to contain the virus — Greece, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and some central European and Nordic nations.
Authorities will take more time to assess the course of the pandemic in the UK and Russia, the island’s primary tourism markets, before rolling out the red carpet for those countries.
Tourists in the near future will have to navigate a different set of expectations, routines and rules to counter the virus.
Christos Angelides, president of the Cyprus Hotel Managers’ Association, said new rules being announced soon will mean that from the moment tourists step out of their bus or taxi from the airport, their luggage will be disinfected and taken straight to their rooms. Reception procedures will be done electronically, with employees behind a plexiglass screen and cleaning staff in full protective gear.
UK personal trainer Kenny Dyer cancelled an Easter holiday in Cyprus and is hopeful of venturing back in October. But Mr Dyer attached a condition that governments may find hard to guarantee.
“I wouldn’t want to fly somewhere where there’s a sudden spike in coronavirus cases, and I would have to be quarantined abroad,” he said.
