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TOURISM

Sicily plans to subsidise holidays after lockdown

Sicily’s regional government has announced plans to subsidise holiday accommodation on the island - once travel to and within Italy is possible again. Here are the details we have so far.

Published: 6 May 2020 10:50 CEST
Sicily plans to subsidise holidays after lockdown
A busy beach on the island of Lampedusa, Sicily, in September 2018. File photo: AFP

The island of Sicily is planning to subsidise holidays for both domestic and international visitors in an effort to revive tourism after the coronavirus pandemic, the island's regional authorites have confirmed.

Their current plans include subsidised hotel stays – offering one night of a three-night trip for free – as well as vouchers for visits to museums and other cultural attractions on the island.

The regional government says it has set aside €75 million to be give out to tourists via “vouchers and cards”.

“€75 million has been allocated for the advance purchase by the Region of vouchers and cards to be distributed, for promotional purposes, to tourists, once the health emergency has ceased,” stated the Sicilian local authority's announcement on May 3rd of its 1.5-billion-euro Stability Bill and the latest regional budget.

“We'll buy services such as hotel nights from operators, and we'll give them to tourists, Sicilians or not, who come to us,” Sicily's tourist board director Manlio Messina told news show Mattino Cinque.

“If you stay at least three nights,the region will pay for one (of them), he explained.

Those who stay for six nights will have two of them paid for by local authorities, he added.

Some media reports have stated that the funding would also go towards paying for flights to and from the island, but this has not been officially confirmed.

Sicily's museums and heritage sites currently stand empty under lockdown. Photo: AFP

“Tourism is the sector that suffered the damage first, and will start up again last, which is why we decided to support it, explained Messina.

Italy's tourism sector has suffered huge financial losses, with industry representatives reporting “the worst crisis in recent history” even before the national lockdown came was announced on March 9th.

Sicily's economy relies heavily on tourism, and the sector's rise is often credited with helping ease the grip of organised crime groups on cities like Palermo. But with poverty now rising, particularly in southern Italy, as incomes are lost to the shutdown, there are fears this progress could be undone without government intervention.

It's not yet known when or exactly how the vouchers will be made available, but more details are expected to be published on the Sicilian tourist board's website once travel is possible.

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The Italian government has not released any further details on when current strict travel restrictions to and within the country may be lifted.

While Italy's tourism minister Dario Franceschini has denied claims that Italy would be closed to holidaymakers until 2021, he has also suggested that international travel may not resume by this summer.

Franceschini told Italian newspaper Il Messaggero the ministry was “making a strong investment in domestic tourism, because this will be a summer of holidays in Italy.”

Italy relaxed some rules as it entered phase two of its lockdown on Monday. However, tight restrictions on travel remain in place.

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HEALTH

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

As Italy’s new school year began, masks and hand sanitiser were distributed in schools and staff were asked to prevent gatherings to help stem an increase in Covid infections.

Published: 11 September 2023 12:48 CEST
Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

Pupils returned to school in many parts of Italy on Monday and authorities said they were distributing masks and hand sanitiser amid a post-summer increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid–19.

“The advice coming from principals, teachers and janitors is to avoid gatherings of students, especially in these first days of school,” Mario Rusconi, head of Italy’s Principals’ Association, told Rai news on Monday.

He added that local authorities in many areas were distributing masks and hand sanitizer to schools who had requested them.

“The use of personal protective equipment is recommended for teachers and students who are vulnerable,” he said, confirming that “use is not mandatory.”

A previous requirement for students to wear masks in the classroom was scrapped at the beginning of the last academic year.

Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS), told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper on Monday that the return to school brings the risk of increased Covid infections.

Ricciardi described the health ministry’s current guidelines for schools as “insufficient” and said they were “based on politics rather than scientific criteria.”

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Recorded cases of Covid have increased in most Italian regions over the past three weeks, along with rates of hospitalisation and admittance to intensive care, as much of the country returns to school and work following the summer holidays.

Altogether, Italy recorded 21,309 new cases in the last week, an increase of 44 percent compared to the 14,863 seen the week before.

While the World Health Organisation said in May that Covid was no longer a “global health emergency,” and doctors say currently circulating strains of the virus in Italy are not a cause for alarm, there are concerns about the impact on elderly and clinically vulnerable people with Italy’s autumn Covid booster campaign yet to begin.

“We have new variants that we are monitoring but none seem more worrying than usual,” stated Fabrizio Maggi, director of the Virology and Biosafety Laboratories Unit of the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome

He said “vaccination coverage and hybrid immunity can only translate into a milder disease in young and healthy people,” but added that “vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable continues to be important.”

Updated vaccines protecting against both flu and Covid are expected to arrive in Italy at the beginning of October, and the vaccination campaign will begin at the end of October, Rai reported.

Amid the increase in new cases, Italy’s health ministry last week issued a circular mandating Covid testing on arrival at hospital for patients with symptoms.

Find more information about Italy’s current Covid-19 situation and vaccination campaign on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

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