IN A BID to attract tourists this summer, the Canary Island government has taken out a multi-billion insurance policy to cover holidaymakers' expenses if they contract Covid-19 whilst visiting.
Applicable to foreigners on short stays in the islands and also to Spaniards and Spanish residents travelling there on a staycation – even those living in the same region - the travel assistance policy, underwritten by AXA España, has a sum insured of €450,000 which pays for all medical care and testing costs, repatriation, and necessary extension of stay for quarantine requirements for any tourist who tests positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
An exclusion applies to any case of Covid-19 known about by the holidaymaker before setting off for the Canary Islands, but there is no policy excess.
It comes into force for all visitors this week, and is valid up to and including December 31 this year.
Regional minister for tourism Yaiza Castilla says the cover is 'yet another step' in the Canaries' 'commitment to reinforcing and increasing safety and peace of mind' among tourists heading for the islands this summer.
She hopes it will also serve to 'regain the confidence of British holidaymakers', whose numbers have fallen almost to nothing nationwide thanks to the UK government's decision to impose a fortnight's quarantine on all travellers returning from Spain, even resident Britons coming back from their summer beach break.
In practice, many Britons are likely to already feel reassured – especially as the Canary Islands has a very low incidence of Covid-19, lower than the rest of Spain which, with the exception of the two-thirds of cases concentrated in the northern provinces of Barcelona, Lleida, Huesca and Navarra, already has a lower incidence than the EU average and one far below that of the UK.
Spanish president Pedro Sánchez recently appeared on the UK's Channel 4 News, where he explained – in his near-fluent English – about the contagion figures in Spain, and stressed UK visitors would in fact be safer in the Mediterranean country than they are at home.
Tourists in particular are being closely watched and would be PCR-tested the moment they reported symptoms.
