What if your holiday turns into a hotel room quarantine?


Passengers arrive at Cape Town International Airport from Hong Kong on January 29 2020 after being screened by health officials due to the outbreak of coronavirus in China.
Image: ESA ALEXANDER/SUNDAY TIMES
“I don’t want to spend my holiday in quarantine, thanks!”
Johannesburg's Elinor Bodinger is among scores of South Africans whose international travel plans have been thrown into turmoil by the rampant, unpredictable spread of the coronavirus or Covid-19.
She booked to fly to Phuket via Singapore on Singapore Airlines at the end of April. “I’ve been trying to move my flights but the airline says I have to pay a penalty fee, which they will only waiver if the SA government or the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘issues a directive’,” she said.
“They are not helping to curb this disease!”


Today (Friday) Thailand announced that visitors arriving in the country from China, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Iran and Italy — all deemed to be high risk for Covid-19 — must “self quarantine” for 14 days, reported Bloomberg.
That means isolating themselves in homes or hotel rooms, and reporting to the authorities daily or being “checked on by officials”. Those breaching the quarantine will face a 20,000 baht (R9,900) fine.
Separately, the country’s health ministry said people coming from Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands and the US were  recommended, rather than required, to quarantine themselves for 14 days.
So for now, at least, those arriving in Thailand from Singapore will not be forced to abandon their travel plans and hole up in their hotel rooms for a fortnight instead, ordering room service meals.
About 40 million tourists visited Thailand last year. One person in that country has died from Covid-19, 16 people are currently hospitalised and an unspecified number have been discharged.
On Friday an angry Bodinger told Marilyn Lewis, CEO of Singapore Airlines’ general sales agent operations in SA, in an e-mail: “You are forcing me to travel to Thailand through Singapore and possibly spend my holiday in quarantine!
“How can you do this to your passengers?”
Lewis responded: “The rules are the rules.”
And so it is with all travel operators as they respond to panicked customers wanting to cancel or postpone imminent travel plans, even to countries which have yet to have a single reported case of Covid-19.
Unless authorities issue a formal advisory making a country a no-go zone, based on WHO recommendations, normal cancellation rules, involving hefty cancellation penalties, apply.
Many are playing a waiting game, holding on to their bookings in the hope that the WHO will declare their destination a red zone, meaning they will be refunded in full.

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