Unvaccinated travellers entering Malta must pay a minimum of €1,400 for a hotel room to observe a mandatory quarantine period upon arrival in the country, the Malta Tourism Authority said.

The news comes after legal notices issued on Tuesday repealed a complete ban on travel into the country for anyone who hasn’t been vaccinated – something which came after EU criticism, instead introducing a mandatory 14-day quarantine period for any unvaccinated arrivals.

Now, the MTA announced through its social media pages that “anyone coming to Malta without a vaccination certificate for any EMA-approved Covid-19 vaccine shall be subject to mandatory quarantine in a hotel and shall also be subject to a minimum accommodation cost of €1,400 per room.”

The certificate must be issued 14 days after the second dose of the vaccine, or after the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in case that is the jab taken.

The travel advice update doesn’t make any distinction between tourists and Maltese residents, and neither does it make a distinction between those who are medically unable to get vaccinated or those who are willingly not taking the vaccine.

The hotel quarantine is similar to that employed in the United Kingdom, where arrivals from red list countries were forced to self-isolate in designated quarantine hotels at their own expense.