As MIQ requirements wind down, managed isolation and quarantine hotels are preparing for major revamps
Hoteliers are hopeful investing in new carpets, beds, mattresses, linen and soft furnishings will help ensure prospective guests do not shun former MIQ facilities, and some unwanted furniture may be recycled.
Having hosted more than 228,500 overseas arrivals and 3600 community cases, New Zealand’s 32 MIQ hotels are now largely redundant under new isolation rules, with all vaccinated travellers among the 1413 still in MIQ able to leave on Saturday.
Some managed isolation will remain for unvaccinated arrivals and community cases as needed, and although contracts with the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) officially run until the end of June, industry sources suggest some will end sooner.
Rydges Auckland general manager Vinicius Belotti said its MIQ contract finishes on April 30 after accommodating more than 10,000 isolating travellers, and the hotel would reopen to the public in stages as it was refurbished, with the first rooms available on May 1.
Sudima Hotels chief operating officer Les Morgan said he had not been told anything at this stage about MIQs closing, but plans for revamps were well advanced for their four MIQ hotels in Auckland, Rotorua and Christchurch, and the cost of that had been included in the room rate they charged the Government.
Accor operates nine MIQ hotels, and senior vice president operations for New Zealand, Pacific and French Polynesia, Gillian Millar, said they were still working through the exact dates for their hotels to enter the market, but they would shut down for a full clean and replacement of furnishings where required.
Auckland University associate professor of microbiology Simon Swift said Covid-19 transmission was mainly via respiratory droplets, and with respect to surfaces, it was clear that the virus was inactivated within a week of contamination.
“So, I don’t see this being a barrier to recycling or reuse of appropriately disinfected and cleaned MIQ hotel furnishings.”
