Travel measures affecting hotel operations: President

Business

HOTELS have been impacted in the last two weeks with a decline in their quarantine business due to new Coronavirus (Covid-19) measures which came into effect last month, says Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Rio Fiocco.
While giving an update on the tourism and hospitality industry, Fiocco said given the travel restrictions limiting tourists coming into the country had affected the sector.
He said hotels however had been reasonably busy with their quarantine business but that aspect of business had now been impacted since new measures released by the National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning allowed fully vaccinated people not to undergo quarantine if they tested negative for the Covid-19 upon arrival.
“It’s good for the people who are fully vaccinated but it’s bad for the hotels who were benefiting from quarantine,” Fiocco told The National. “We are not allowing people in for tourism so basically there’s no tourism business.”
“What happened now is that they are allowing people who are fully vaccinated to come in without doing quarantining from certain countries such as Australia, that means the hotels that were doing okay with the quarantine business have lost all that business now for the last two weeks.
“Hotels who were reasonably busy with their quarantine customers have lost all that business now and are really struggling.”