Sicily will pay half the price of tourists' flights and a third of their hotel bill to lure holidayers back
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit several industries with tourism being one of the worst-hit sectors. Due to the fall in tourism, a number of countries have seen a decline in their economies. This includes Italy, which attracts millions of tourists each year.
The European country, 13 percent of whose GDP comes from tourism, is planning to lure back those tourists. Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of Italy's twenty provinces, is planning to attract visitors from all over the world by paying half the price of their flights among other incentives after the lockdown ends on May 4.
The regional government has allotted a $54 million budget to pay for the scheme after the deadly virus robbed the industry of around $1.08 billion in March and April. The scheme also includes payment of one in every three of tourists’ hotel nights and all their museums and archaeological sites’ visiting tickets.
According to The Times report, the vouchers will be available for the visitors on the island's tourism website. This comes after Italy Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Tuesday, April 21, that the country is tentatively planning its reopening, with quarantine measures set to begin lifting on May 4.
“I wish I could say: let’s reopen everything. Immediately. We start tomorrow morning … But such a decision would be irresponsible. It would make the contagion curve go up in an uncontrolled way and would nullify all the efforts we have made so far. We must act on the basis of a national (reopening) plan, which however takes into account the territorial peculiarities,” he said in a Facebook post.
After the prime minister’s announcement, tourist boards are reportedly planning to initiate social distancing on beaches as a precautionary measure. For example, a place in Italy has proposed a plan for tourists to use "plexiglass boxes" to relax on the beach to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The boxes include 2 meter high plexiglass screens that have been deemed as "chicken coops" by local media.
However, lifeguards and club owners in the region are not so enthused about the plan as they slammed the proposal, claiming it was "unrealistic". A restaurant in Rome named Il Ciak is also trying plexiglass shields so that people can dine out again.
The COVID-19 pandemic has infected around 2,800,000 people across the world with a death toll of 197,578. Italy is one of the worst-hit countries. It has the second-highest death toll in the world after the United States with 25,969 fatalities from 192,994 confirmed cases.
Meanwhile, Lombardy, at the epicenter of Europe's coronavirus outbreak, started an antibody testing program this week. The Italian region is preparing for opening its economy following weeks of lockdown.
The test called ‘serological tests’ measures the number of antibodies or proteins present in the blood when the body is responding to a specific infection, like COVID-19. For now, it will be carried out in 14 of the worst-hit areas of Lombardy before being implemented in the whole region next week.
This test, unlike nasal swab tests which look for the presence of the coronavirus directly, detects the body’s immune response to the infection caused by the virus rather than detecting the virus itself.