Abstract
During 2020, quarantine tourism, a new form of tourism, was born due to the political reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those repatriated to their country of residence (often they were students studying abroad) were compelled to be quarantined (typically two weeks) in a hotel facility then monitored in order to slow the spread of the virus to the country’s general population. In this article, the authors explore how this form of tourism came into being and how Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the two political entities on the island of Cyprus dealt with people coming into the country and the organization of quarantines for those repatriated. The findings, based upon interviews with managers in the hospitality industry and secondary sources, show that governments in some cases took an active role, while local and central government activity varied a great deal in the cases investigated. However, all cases show that there was a strong sense of corporate social responsibility that made managers and owners feel compelled to assist in combatting the COVID-19 when assisting repatriated persons.
Highlights
Quarantine tourism/hospitality is a field invention in which populations were repatriated to their countries of residence, but could not be allowed to roam around the country’s general population for fear of spreading the infection of a new virus
Other substantial challenges are the new strains of the virus that can suddenly surface like in the case of the UK, Brazil, and South Africa in December 2020. The discovery of these new strains led many countries to immediately suspend flights and impose compulsory quarantine in hotels. This was the COVID-19 and the emergence of quarantine tourism case in Cyprus where two sets of quarantine protocols operated concurrently; one for passengers coming from the UK and requiring isolation in dedicated hotels, and one for other passengers arriving from 'red zones' needing to quarantine themselves at home
The experiences with quarantine tourism in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Cyprus illustrate that there was strong evidence that the hotel industry responded to the crisis in very affirmative ways out of a sense of corporate social responsibility and took an active attitude towards the crisis in all cases investigated
Summary
Quarantine tourism/hospitality is a field invention in which populations were repatriated to their countries of residence, but could not be allowed to roam around the country’s general population for fear of spreading the infection of a new virus. We look into how quarantine hospitality emerged in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the two political entities on the island of Cyprus and make observations for Europe in a post vaccine era.
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