THE UK Government is booking thousands of hotel rooms near airports ahead of new quarantine rules coming in for international arrivals.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it is working “at pace to secure the facilities we need”.

The requirement for travellers returning to the UK from “red list” countries to self-isolate in a government-approved hotel for 10 days will be implemented from February 15.

This is among tougher border rules aimed at slowing the spread of new Covid-19 strains.

Travellers staying at quarantine hotels will be asked to pay around £80 per night, an industry source told the BBC.

A commercial specification was issued on Thursday evening to hotels near air and seaports asking for proposals on how they can support the delivery of quarantine facilities ahead of formal contracts being awarded.

The scheme will reportedly run until at least the end of March, with officials seeking to reserve 28,000 hotel rooms for use over that period.

The paper said that it had seen documents showing that an estimated 1425 passengers will need to be accommodated each day, mostly near Heathrow.

Travellers will be given three meals a day via room service.

They will be required to take a coronavirus test on the second and eighth days of their stay, with a negative result needed in order for them to leave, according to the report.

READ MORE: Advisers warned warned Boris Johnson to shut borders last month

The Government will pay around £55 million up front and try to recoup the money from passengers, the paper said.

For Labour, shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said the Government was again doing “too little, too late” criticising it taking “more than 50 days after the South African strain was discovered” to impose hotel quarantines.

A DHSC spokesman said they had been in discussions with the aviation, maritime, hotel and hospitality industries and counterparts in Australia and New Zealand, which already have similar schemes.