Canada has instituted a mandatory three-day hotel quarantine for all incoming passengers at the cost of roughly C$2,000 per person that begins tomorrow, February 22, 2021 (read more here).
Ottawa started to solicit hotels to be used as quarantine centers in early February (read more here) in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. The only cities that will continue to accept international arrival.
You can access Canada’s page for the Covid-19 information page here.
Canada began requiring a negative PCR-RT test from all air arrivals from February 4 (read more here), and this is extended to the land border on February 15, 2021 (read more here).
The 72-hour hotel quarantine is in place to conduct PCR-RT tests from all air arrivals, and those who test positive are then moved from the hotel to other government “designated” facilities.
When passengers are released from the hotel quarantine, they need to continue quarantining at their place of residence for a total of 14 nights.
Here are the current quarantine hotels:
Alberta: Calgary International Airport (YYC)
- Acclaim Hotel
- Calgary Airport Marriott In-Terminal Hotel
British Columbia: Vancouver International Airport (YVR)
- Fairmont Vancouver Airport
- Radisson Vancouver Airport
- The Westin Wall Centre, Vancouver Airport
Ontario: Toronto Pearson Airport (YYZ)
- Alt Hotel Pearson Airport
- Fairfield Inn & Suites Toronto Airport
- Four Points by Sheraton
- Holiday Inn Toronto International Airport
- Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Toronto International Airport
Quebec: Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)
- Aloft Montreal Airport
- Crowne Plaza Montreal Airport
- Holiday Inn Express and Suites Montreal Airport
- Montreal Airport Marriott In-Terminal
How to book the hotel:
Book your hotel
Hotel stopover bookings are managed by GB Travel Canada Inc., and are available by phone only.
If your flight to Canada is scheduled within the next 48 hours, call to reserve and pay for your mandatory 3-night hotel stopover:
- 1-800-294-8253 (toll-free within North America)
- 1-613-830-2992 (collect outside of North America)
Regular hours of operation: 8 am to 11 pm ET, 7 days a week. Calls received after hours will be limited to emergencies.
You’ll be able to choose from the listed hotel locations and be required to provide:
- traveller name(s)
- date(s) of birth
- gender (male, female, or undisclosed)
- arrival city and date
- confirmation of flight reservation
- payment information
- special requests and accessibility concerns
- pet information
- email address
Travellers will receive email confirmation of their accommodation within 4 hours of booking.
Costs of these hotel stopovers may vary by location. The price will include costs associated with the:
- food
- room
- security
- transportation
- infection prevention and control measures
It is unlikely that the hotel quarantine is a qualifying stay because you need to use a third-party agency to book it that likely collects a rather “hefty” commission.
Conclusion
The price of this three-day-long quarantine is pricey (estimated at C$2,000) compared to what ten-day and two-week quarantine costs are in the UK and Hong Kong.
Not sure if these hotels are closed entirely for non-quarantine passengers, as is usually the case for the virus not to spread. Also, there have been infections with the staff working in the quarantine hotels in Australia.
In case you have plans to stay at any of the above hotels as a non-quarantine passenger, I would cancel my reservations and rebooked something else.
Hi John, a friend shared that he learned the true price/rates are viewable for the Marriott hotels via the rate code “RZL” however they still have to be booked via GBT phone officially. Good way to assess pricing at each at least for Marriott hotels however.
Isn’t that lovely. Detainees have such a possibilities of imprisonment.
Yeah it’s complete BS. This government succeeded in diverting attention for the average joe Canadian from their colossal failure to protect our most vulnerable and to secure vaccines, to the completely peripheral issue of travel. Bringing in ridiculously priced hotel quarantine, (over a year too late and not based around empirical evidence of non-compliance around home quarantine) while there is plenty of community spread already in Canada. Yet 60%+ of travel to Canada are truckers, crossing the border but no need to quarantine or test.
I’m still on the fence for this one.
There are clearly people trying to flee the strict rules by going down south for a week or two of partying. The lack of proof that it is responsible for a considerable amount of infection of the Canadian population is largely due to the fact that there was hardly any tracing or control on the mandatory home quarantine. However, health care workers have had plenty of testimonies of people cheating the covid measures, including abroad. It would beg the question how otherwise the Brazilian/British/South-African variants could’ve entered Canada?
It makes a lot of sense to discourage the general population to go party down south and this is a great measure.
While I agree there must be strict measures for essential workers crossing the land borders too, quarantining truckers will make it impossible for getting essential goods (e.g. food) across the border. However, ramping up the testing at the border is a great move (which the government is working on in conjunction with the US.)
Apart from that: community spread is indeed still going on. But the feds handed that over to the provinces and territories. The simple fact that community spread hasn’t gone done enough means that there are too many people still cheating, and you really don’t want to give them a chance to travel internationally to places with less measures and oversight.
If we stop being a bunch of crybabies and do what is necessary, maybe we can finally get rid of that virus and have to rely less on the feds getting vaccines. New Zealand did it, so there is absolutely no reason we can’t. The longer we complain and cheat, the longer this misery will continue.
Loving that “socialism” Canada?
Who would have thought the Canadians would be complicit in fleecing people?…..perhaps they’re not our “friends” after all. I’d like to see the US ban all travel between the border including trucks, mail etc.
Neither economy could withstand the complete closure to the trade of goods. IOW, don’t be ridiculous.