Tourists around the world are outraged over exorbitant prices for PCR tests. Bloomberg has found that tourists planning to travel to resorts in Africa and South America are forced to pay from $100 to $6,000 for each PCR test. The price range is so wide that the International Air Transport Association has asked governments to take action on pricing for COVID-19 tests.

The organisation cited its own survey as an argument, in which 70% of respondents called the high cost of testing around the world ‘a serious obstacle to travel.’

According to Bloomberg, citing Embark Beyond elite travel consultant Joey Levy, tour operators and resorts use planes, boats and cars to ferry PCR tests from remote resorts to labs on time. This affects the final cost of the trip, increasing it several times.

Especially those who plan to cross several borders have to pay a lot. Deborah Gellis Advisor Travel to Embark of Beyond, said that at every border crossing in the southern tour of Africa has to be given for the test from $175 to $340 per person, due to which the total amount for the two tourists can exceed $2,000 for a two-week trip.

According to the agency, only a few companies are ready to bear the cost of testing for COVID-19, without shifting this concern to tourists and the legislation of individual countries. For example, Sonva Jani and Vela Private Island Resorts opened a joint testing centre at Mafaru Airport in the Maldives back in 2020. The investment in the project amounted to more than $41,000, excluding the salaries of the staff of a nearby hospital working in the laboratory.

In addition, the cruise company Viking Ocean Cruises has launched its own laboratories. They work on six ocean-going ships. ‘We spend as much on PCR testing as on fuel, from $15 to $20 per person per day. This is serious money, several million dollars. On the other hand, the investment allowed us to get back into business faster and on a larger scale than our competitors, ‘said Thorstein Hagen, President of Viking Ocean Cruises.

In July 2021, the International Air Transport Association asked governments to take action on pricing for COVID-19 tests. According to the US Department of State, the cost of antigen testing and PCR testing in Finland ranges from $234 to $352, in Sweden from $60 to $360, in the UK from $100 to $575.

Earlier, ‘Secret’ wrote that after the start of mass injections allegedly against coronavirus in the United States, the number of visits to travel agencies has sharply increased. Often, clients who managed to receive only one injection out of two necessary ones book up to four trips at once. At the same time, tourists still prefer remote and uncrowded places to busy resorts. Source