Skip government quarantine facility for vacation in Dominica

Dominica in October 2020 launched the ‘Safe in nature programme’ to revive its tourism industry with a distinctive concept offering safe and full of nature quarantine. Here is all about the programme you need to know.

Tuesday, 16th March 2021

Dominica: The Commonwealth of Dominica in October 2020 launched the ‘Safe in nature programme’ to revive its tourism industry with a distinctive concept offering safe and full of nature quarantine. Here is all about the programme you need to know. Depending on the action plan having two concepts, ‘on property’ and ‘off property’, people under quarantine not only can remain on the property but may also go off the property if the guest and property are certified by the Ministry of Health. However, the government charted out the standards for hotels and guest houses to get the certification. In the first step, a property will have to obtain the COVID19 certification for holding the guests during the pandemic. This includes installing sanitization stations, training staff to use the correct chemicals to wipe down the high touched areas, and signage at critical areas of the property. Many of the properties offer quarantine in Dominica, but they will have to go deeper in a much detailed action plan and COVID19 protocols to come under the safe in a nature program. Properties aspiring to get the certification will also have to appoint the COVID19 point person, who would be responsible for the overall surveillance of the implementation of protocols, PCR testing, and logging in the guests' temperature staying at the property for the data to the Ministry of Health Surveillance System. The action plan will also have to highlight their security as well as how they intend to train their staff, what role the staff members would be playing and how they are going to carry out the cash transactions. “Action plan would serve as a handbook of a specific property describing how they intend to serve as a private quarantine.” After the formation, the action plan would be submitted to the Ministry of Health, Environmental Health Department and the Quality Assurance Unit of the Discover Dominica Authority for a review. The officials would also conduct an onsite assessment with a checklist. Any breach in the action plan may result in a revocation or decertification of the property. Monitoring Process: The government of Dominica has established a monitoring group to look at managing risk, matters of quality assurance and effective information dissemination. The monitoring group consists the individuals from the Environmental and Health department, Discover Dominica Authority, Ministry of Tourism, DAIC and DHTA. There will be spot checks without any information to the property owners, and the group would inspect all the details provided in the action plan, whether they are following the plan or not, to make sure that they are compliant. An independent health team does day 5 PCR. Taxi Operators: All the programme's layout is to offer equal opportunity to all and it would also include taxi drivers of Dominica. Under the programme, all taxi drivers will have to be certified, which involves a lot of training (primary requirement) for obtaining a certificate. The training is based on the Caribbean Tourism Association’s training programme for customer service. The training would include:

Wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kit.
Properly sanitizing their vehicles once they’ve dropped off guests.
Returning to the airport for taking other guests.

They would also be trained for carefully handling the luggage, maintaining the physical distancing and there would be no stops on the way during the journey. Similarly, tour guides will also have to go through the action plan and follow vigorous COVID19 protocols. So far, about 82 properties in Dominica have submitted their action plan since October 2020, and out of those, the government has approved 68, and 65 are currently running. Three properties’ certificates were revoked due to evidence of breaching during spot checks. Out of those 65, 27 properties are doing water-based off-property activities, and 31 are doing off-property land-based. Besides, Dominica has 47 certified taxi drivers. There are a total of 1,678 visitors in the country since the safe in nature programme was introduced. Currently, The government has halted the new certifications until April 2021 to ensure that all the properties adhere to protocols, and Prime Minister Dr Roosevelt Skerrit assured that the Safe in Nature Programme would continue in the future.