Mexico City offers free insurance to bring back tourists
— -- In a novel attempt to lure back wary tourists scared off by high crime rates and last spring's swine flu outbreak, the Mexico City government is offering visitors free health and travel insurance through December.
Announced this week, the plan applies to guests at all of the city's 470 hotels and covers everything from emergency treatment at their choice of public or private hospitals to legal assistance for robberies and compensation for delayed or canceled flights. Tourists will be given explanatory pamplets on arrival at the Mexico City airport and when they check in to their hotels, and a 24-hour call center will offer assistance in English, Spanish, and other languages, says Juan Carlos Arnau, spokesman for Mexico City's minister of tourism.
Mexico City's government is paying a $30 per person deductible for the policies, which are issued by a Spanish insurer, says Arnau. In addition to emergency medical and dental care (including ambulance transport and prescribed medicines), the coverage includes hotel stays during a traveler's convalescence, legal help for recovering lost or stolen documents and belongings, and other costs.
Mexico City hotel occupancy rates have climbed back to 59% after plummeting to 5% in late April, when a swine flu outbreak forced schools, government offices and businesses to shut down. The city normally draws about 4 million foreign visitors a year, including 3.3 million Americans.
The H1N1 virus has since spread across the globe, prompting the World Health Organization to declare the first pandemic in more than 40 years.
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