TASHKENT: In a bid to restart the badly hit tourism industries, authorities in Uzbekistan have come up with an unique solution of attracting tourists back to the country as lockdowns are slowly lifted and international travels is allowed. Under the new initiative called “Safe Travel Guaranteed”, the authorities of the country would be paying $3,000 to any person who gets infected by the coronavirus while travelling within the country.
Sophie Ibbotson, Uzbekistan’s tourism ambassador, has said that the decision was taken as they feel confident about the the safety and hygiene measures that have been implemented across the tourism sector that the President is willing to put money where his mouth is. However, conditions are applied. First, the person travelling would have to explore the country with a local tour guide. All the sites that you visit during your tour in the country must be certified ‘safe’ by the government. Further, people coming from high risk countries would have to quarantine themselves of a mandatory 14 days.