Quarantine rules undergo change in Saudi Arabia; Abu Dhabi to follow suit

Our Correspondent

Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) has lifted the quarantine requirements for those who have been fully vaccinated, it was announced on June 1.

Travellers must possess a vaccination certificate attested by their home country to be exempt from quarantine. The vaccines approved in the Kingdom are Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson.

Unvaccinated foreign travellers will have to observe set a seven-day isolation period.

Abu Dhabi to lift quarantine for travellers from July 1

The UAE capital Abu Dhabi intends to lift quarantine restrictions for international travellers from July 1, while the capital’s border with Dubai will be made more “tourist friendly”, said a senior tourism official at the Arabian Travel Market on May 31.

It will also expand its green list of countries in the lead up to July 1. But travellers from countries such as India will have to quarantine even after that.

The new system will be similar to the Dubai system, and the PCR protocol will be different from high-risk to low-risk destinations, the spokesperson said.

Those coming from countries with higher infection rate would have to undergo two tests – one before they travel and another upon their arrival in Abu Dhabi.

Presently, travellers have to quarantine for 10 days upon arrival unless they arrive from a country on the green list; 22 countries are on the list now.

The capital’s tourism department will devise a new strategy to deal with hotel establishments in the emirate, which number 165 hotels and 33,000 rooms.