Sicily will PAY half the price of tourists' flights, a third of their hotel bill and give away free tickets for museums in bid to lure back holidaymakers after lockdown

Sicily will pay half the price of tourists' flights in a bid to lure back holidaymakers after the coronavirus lockdown.

The regional government will also pay one in every three of their hotel nights and all their tickets for museums and archaeological sites. 

A €50 million budget will pay for the scheme after coronavirus robbed the industry of around €1 billion in March and April.   

The vouchers will be made available on the island's tourism website, according to The Times. 

Sicily will pay half the price of tourists' flights in a bid to lure back holidaymakers after the coronavirus lockdown. Pictured is Mazzaro beach near Toarmina in Sicily 

In Italy 13 per cent of the GDP comes from tourism and the country is already planning ways to reboot the sector when lockdown ends on May 4.

For example tourist boards are looking at ways to create social distancing on beaches. 

Deaths from coronavirus in Italy climbed by 464 yesterday, but the daily tally of new infections declined to 2,646 from 3,370 on Wednesday.

In Italy 13 per cent of the GDP comes from tourism and the country is already planning ways to reboot the sector when lockdown ends on May 4. Pictured is an empty street near the Colosseum in Rome which would normally be packed 

A patient receives treatment in the infectious diseases department of the Cannizzaro hospital in Catania, Sicily

As many as 40 per cent of those new cases were in the hard-hit Lombardy region where the first domestically transmitted case was confirmed just over two months ago.

The total official death toll since the outbreak came to light on February 21 now stands at 25,549, the Civil Protection Agency said. 

A view of the deserted streets at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy. The tourist industry has come to a complete standstill in Italy

Italy has the second highest death toll in the world after that of the United States.  

The civil protection unit yesterday also published statistics on how many patients had been tested for the virus so far in Italy, putting the number at 1.053 million, out of a population of around 60 million.

The agency had previously only issued data on the number of swabs carried out. This is a much higher figure because many people are tested two or three times.

Lombardy, at the epicentre of Europe's worst coronavirus outbreak, began an antibody testing program this week as it prepared to start opening up its economy following weeks of lockdown. 

The so-called serological tests on intravenous blood samples, using a kit designed by diagnostics specialist Diasorin, will be carried out in 14 of the worst-hit areas of Lombardy before being extended to the whole region next week.

Unlike nasal swab tests, which look for the presence of the coronavirus directly, the serological tests look for antibodies that indicate viral contagion, but they are quicker and simpler to administer.