Rob Paterson, chief executive of Best Western Hotels in the UK, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that they had not “not heard anything” from the government about the proposed details of the quarantine hotel regime.
No date has yet been set for when the government plans to start using quarantine hotels.
Prime minister Boris Johnson’s statement on Wednesday (3 February) about an announcement on hotel quarantines being made by health secretary Matt Hancock on Thursday (4 February) was later contradicted by Downing Street, who said Johnson had been “misinformed” and an announcement will be made “in due course”.
Paterson said: “We have yet to understand exactly what the protocols are required of the hotels. We have set out a set of suggested protocols and offered our support and are yet to hear anything.
“It seems logical to me that you would sit down with the airlines, airport operators and hotel operators and thrash this out on a Zoom call or whatever it might be.
“I’m a bit surprised we’ve not heard anything other than very broad information about what timings they are thinking about and who is handling it. We’ve not had any discussions at all. We have simply been kept in the dark.”
Paterson added that hotels needed “reassurance” on issues such as demand levels, pricing and security protocols needed.
