On Tuesday, the United States started requiring everybody crossing its borders to travel with a negative COVID-19 antigen test, including its citizens and permanent residents.
Since Mexico is a country that has welcomed a significant number of American tourists since the pandemic started, communities and hotels there have scrambled to make this process as simple as possible. One is Puerto Vallarta.
Numerous hotels in this beachfront community are providing free antigen tests to their guests while many others are providing on-site access to them at a cost.
Regardless of how it is done, those visiting Puerto Vallarta and then heading to the U.S. need to have taken an antigen test within three days of departing on their flight and have a negative result to show.
This requirement has caused many Americans to hesitate making trips to Mexico. One is Tammy McQuitty, a Colorado Springs woman who told USA Today that she and her husband had planned to visit Puerto Vallarta in February but canceled their trip once the testing requirement was announced due to it now being “not worth the risk.”
Where they had planned to stay, the Secrets Vallarta Bay Puerto Vallarta, states that, in the event of a test that is administered there coming back positive, it will handle the cost of quarantining there for up to 14 days. McQuitty, however, was skeptical, saying that “there’s got to be some kind of catch.”
However, another view is that the resort is expecting a small percentage of its guests to receive positive test results, and the cost of housing those who do for up to two weeks is worth it due to the positive public relations that results from this policy and the income that would be received from the guests who stay there and receive negative test results.