Uzbekistan to pay $3,000 to tourists if they contract coronavirus while visiting

Uzbekistan is initiating a unique approach to restore its tourism industry by paying tourists $3,000 if they contract COVID-19 while visiting.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed an official order regarding this. “These are additional measures for the development of tourism in strict compliance with enhanced sanitary and epidemiological security.”

As part of this decree, businesses across the country were awarded additional privileges for reopening guide services and translators, who are now able to reinstate their services.

The funds for the purpose will come from the “Uzbekistan. Safe Travel Guaranteed” initiative. The dollar amount is meant to be equal to the estimated cost of medical care and treatment that citizens of Uzbekistan would receive should they become infected with the virus.

“We want to reassure tourists they can come to Uzbekistan,” Uzbekistan’s tourism ambassador to the United Kingdom, Sophie Ibbotson, said in a statement. “The government is confident that the new safety and hygiene measures being implemented across the tourism sector will protect tourists from COVID-19, that the President is prepared to put money where his mouth is: if you get COVID-19 on holiday in Uzbekistan, we will compensate you.”

Uzbekistan is a Central Asian nation, and was part of the erstwhile USSR. It’s known for its mosques, mausoleums and other sites linked to the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China and the Mediterranean. Samarkand, a major city on the route, contains a landmark of Islamic architecture: the Registan, a plaza bordered by three ornate, mosaic-covered religious schools dating to the 15th and 17th centuries.