Seychelles has announced they will reopen its doors to international visitors subject to strict conditions?

After closing its borders for almost a year in bid to contain the spread of COVID-19, Seychelles has now announced it will be opening up again for tourism with immediate effect. However, this will be subject to conditions.

In order to open their doors to tourists, international travellers will be subject to strict conditions categorised?by a two-step process.

Firstly, the government said that by mid-March of this year, visitors are required to hold documents proving they are vaccinated, and for it to have been at least two weeks since receiving the second dose. Secondly, travellers are required to provide proof that they have a valid negative PCR test 72 hours before travelling. In addition, visitors won’t need to quarantine.?

Health Minister Peggy?Vidot hopes that the majority of the population will be vaccinated by mid-March, targeting around 70% of the population, in bid to move up to herd immunity. Vidot shared her interpretation on the process in a press conference:

As a country, we realize?that one of the tools to help us in our response plan to the epidemic is the mass vaccination campaign which we started on January 10 and we are confident that once we roll out this?campaign, we would have our population attain a certain level of immunity which would assist us in strengthening the tourism industry,

Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism Sylvestre Radegonde highlighted his hopes that the tourism industry would bounce back following the move in the press conference:

We hope that this will open up the tourism industry primarily for the locals; the small hotels that are presently struggling on La Digue and Praslin, and also on Mahé. But also provide that kick that our economy desperately needs. As you know the Seychelles economy is in dire situation at the moment and we hope that all these measures will allow the economy to start all over again,

Source: Seychelles Nation

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