Mexico headed for travel red list but India turns amber as hotel quarantine rises to £3,700 per couple
Any couples travelling in Mexico will now see their holiday get whole lot more expensive: The tourist hotspot will move to the UK’s travel red list from 4am Sunday, meaning any Brits arriving back in England must pay for a 10-day hotel quarantine which will rise to £3,700 per couple.
The UK Government announced the hike in hotel quarantine fees, up from £1,700 to £2,285 for a single traveller, to as much as £3,715 for a couple sharing a room, along with changes to the traffic light system.
The new rates will be charged from 12 August.
Meanwhile, India – thought to be the home of the highly infectious Delta Covid variant – is among four countries being removed from the travel red list, meaning arrivals from the country no longer have to stay in hotel quarantine.
Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are also being moved out of the high-risk category, in a boost for airline hubs Dubai and Doha.
The move means holidays to Dubai and transitting through the hub could be back on for the majority of Brits, as vaccinated travellers arriving from amber list countries no longer need to self-isolate at home for 10 days.
Summer holiday stalwart Spain has avoided being slapped with the dreaded red status, which would have led to thousands of holidays being effectively cancelled.
Instead, the Government is urging travellers to take a PCR test before they fly home from the country.
Georgia and the French overseas departments of La Reunion and Mayotte will be put in the red tier.
Mexico has long kept its borders open throughout the Covid-19 pandemic as tourism is a large export earner, however the UK Government has deemed the situation in the country a potential breeding ground for variants that would undermine the vaccine effort in the UK.
The UK said the countries and territories “present a high public health risk to the UK from known variants of concern, known high-risk variants under investigation or as a result of very high in-country or territory prevalence of Covid-19”.
Health and social care secretary Sajid Javid said: “Further countries have been added to the red list to help protect the success of our vaccine rollout from the threat of new variants.”
Honeymoon ruined
A young couple have cut short their honeymoon in Mexico from two weeks to two days, as holidaymakers are hit by the UK’s latest travel restrictions.
Joe Coward, 29, discovered the new restrictions after landing in Mexico early on Thursday morning and had to quickly book a return flight to London to avoid the cost.
The student from London told the PA news agency: “Basically we touched down to find that our two-week honeymoon, which had already been rearranged several times, was going to be a two-day visit.
“We’ve arranged a flight for tomorrow and will be spending today getting ready to turn right around and go home.
“We feel extremely angry at the Government’s incompetent handling of international travel rules during this crisis, and incredibly sad and frustrated that the time that should’ve been spent enjoying being newlyweds has been ruined.”
Coward said if the couple do not receive a refund from British Airways for their holiday, based near Cancun, they will be “several thousand pounds out of pocket”.
Some good news
Transport secretary Grant Shapps also announced more countries, including Germany, Austria and Norway would move to the UK’s green list for safe travel, although the destinations are not currently accepting UK tourists.
Shares in airlines like British Airways owner IAG, Easyjet and Jet2 were up slightly this morning, although some of their rivals were down, indicating a somewhat muted response from the investors.
Passengers numbers at some of the UK’s largest airlines won’t recover until long-haul destinations such as the US or more of Europe become viable holiday options for leisure travellers.
Tim Alderslade, boss of Airlines UK, the industry body representing UK-registered carriers, described the announcement as “another missed opportunity”.
He added that the travel industry has not had “anything like the reopening it was hoping for”.
Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said: “While there’s some welcome progress, the Government is still being too cautious at a time when they should be opening up travel faster to help the sector’s recovery.”
Shapps claimed today that the traffic light system allows holidaymakers to travel abroad without “looking over their shoulders” in fear of being caught out by changing rules.