Let’s bring tourists from COVID-19 hotspots!

By Saranga Dananjaya

Purposely intended sarcastic title was to attract attention; however I strongly believe there is a serious business case in what I’m about to propose. We have to be proud that our little country was able to beat most of COVID-19 compared to most other developed countries. While COVID-19 is not an easy enemy to defeat as examples have shown repeatedly, at least for the time being we are on the good side of the story. 

As some of you have heard there was news about a religious leader who planned to come to SL. As it is the case with everything nowadays, most of them seems to have an opinion about this. However if you remove your racist lenses and green, red, blue party lenses, the story seems quite straight forward to me. The person is an elderly, probably loved by their community, currently residing in a COVID-19 hotspot and clearly there is a risk to his life. And if you can afford it, why not keep him in a place where he is safe. Example: A resort in Sri Lanka. 

If you think about it, this is true for anybody. Anybody who is wealthy! There are many people who would like to send their elderly (the most vulnerable) or simply move the entire family to a country like ours where there is nothing to worry about. Below is my proposition:

• Sri Lanka will accommodate guests for reservations which are 30 days to 180 days. 
• If someone books for 30 days and wishes to extend, they can do so while in Sri Lanka 
• All needs to be pre-booked and paid for via travel agents
• If there is a batch of people then perhaps SriLankan airlines can bring them down via special charted flight.
• Just like EU and UK did, we can have a list of countries (probably based on where SriLankan airline can bring down guests) 
• And two days before departure a test must be conducted via an institute proposed by SriLankan airlines or Sri Lankan Embassy in the respective country (for example, SriLankan airlines must be having staff in London and Mumbai to help with these recommendations) 
• All should have a travel insurance of USD X amount. 
• Upon arrival they will be tested again and parked at a hotel near the airport for four days. 
• On the fourth day (I’m not a medical expert, kindly do the numbers accordingly) they perform one last test before they are released to their destination. 

If this is viable, kindly do the math on how often they can change hotels, the minimum stay, etc. This will revive many of our industries, the hotels, travel agents, airline, and drivers. This is proposed with the assumption that if you invite someone to stay in Sri Lanka free of COVID-19 risk, there will be enough demand. Think of the city like Mumbai, Delhi, Singapore, Moscow, any European or US city. Even any Middle Eastern country. I genuinely think this will have demand. 

As for what do you do if we realise that an arrival is in fact COVID-19 positive, we will take care of them the same way we take care of Sri Lankan patients. Naturally all these are signed and understood before their arrival. And they have travel insurance and needless to explain how hospitals charge from insurance ‘handsomely’ which is not unethical as this is a norm in any part of the world. 

If course we might have to look at legal aspects such as what if there will be a resurgence in Sri Lanka. Will we be liable, if so are we going to send them back? 

However potential benefits of this is endless. Rather than the weekend local guests and tourists who stay for 1-2 nights, for other hotels, guest staying for more than a week and possibly a month can be an amazing bonus for any hotel in these dire times. 

We are now on first week of July; I hear that we may open the airport by 15 August. Which means we have at least five weeks before this happens. Perhaps a meeting with travel agents will help us to understand is this a viable proposition that we can pursue.