Colombia eyes up tourism restart and 'travel bubble' with South American neighbours
While no-one is suggesting that the Covid-19 crisis is over, the conversation in Europe has at least moved on to how life may be once the virus has receded. Travel has reemerged as a genuine possibility rather than a vague theory, with Spain reopening its borders last weekend, and Malta announcing that it will do the same thing from July 1.
So spare a thought for South America, where travellers on the road back to some sort of normality have further to go. This week, Colombia has announced that it is taking the chains off its borders. However, the key will not turn fully in the lock until September 1.
This should perhaps not be a surprise. South America has become the fourth epicentre of the pandemic, following China, Europe and the United States in being badly hit by the disease. Rates of infection remain high – especially in Brazil, which, on Monday, became only the second country (after the USA) to reach an official tally of 50,000 Covid deaths.
The sense of caution is understandable, argues Gilberto Salcedo, the vice-president of tourism at ProColombia, the agency charged with promoting the country as a destination.
“The government is seeking a balance between the measures we have taken to face the pandemic and, of course, the economic situation,” he says. “We cannot say that September 1 is too early or too late. We are just looking for the right moment to reopen.”
Colombia was swift to shut down as the scale of the threat from Covid-19 became clear. It closed its borders to non-citizens on March 16 – a day before it moved to a state of emergency, and almost a week before it registered its first death from the virus (on March 21). In relative terms, its speed of action looks to have paid off. To date, it has suffered 2,404 deaths – just over half the number in its neighbour Ecuador (officially 4,274), a nation with a third of its population, and a figure dwarfed by the awful statistics in Brazil.
For now, its reopening will occur at a single location – El Dorado Airport, in the capital Bogota, which will welcome back planes from the likes of Air Canada, Air Europa, US budget operator Spirit Airlines and Panama’s national carrier Copa. This means runways in popular cities like Cartagena and emerging travel hotspots like Medellin will remain out of action for a little longer, but Salcedo does not see this as an issue. “El Dorado accounts for 75 per cent of international traffic in Colombia,” he says. “It’s a good start”.
Passengers who land in Bogota from September 1 can expect to do so without being delayed by any unusual restrictions. “We don’t – as it stands – have a quarantine period,” Salcedo continues. “We hope we will not, because, of course, tourism cannot exist with these kinds of measures in force. You cannot expect people to come to Colombia and stay in one place for 14 or 15 days, then move on to their holiday – it would be so expensive.”
Colombia may reopen sooner than the start of September – but only to countries which share its borders. “We have been talking to Ecuador, Peru and all our neighbours, about setting up a travel bubble – as has been discussed between New Zealand and Australia, or in the European Union,” Salcedo adds. “It is probably better to start with a pilot case – and perhaps our near-neighbours are the best beginnings for these types of travel bubbles. We have a lot of connectivity with them, we are close – and we have similar situations.”
Colombia has been one of tourism’s biggest success stories in the last 10 years, stepping away from the drug-trafficking wars and guerrilla insurgencies which so dogged it in the Eighties and Nineties to shine on the map as an up-and-coming corner of South America whose Caribbean beaches are as alluring as its Andean mountaintops and historic cities. However, its tourist industry is still relatively nascent, making Salcedo hopeful that the blow delivered by Covid-19 can be absorbed without too much damage to infrastructure.
“Tourism in Colombia accounts for about two per cent of GDP,” he explains. “That does not compare with the likes of Spain, where it is nearer 11 per cent. We are growing a lot, but we are relatively young in the tourism field because of the security issues of the past.”
“Of course, the impact [of the pandemic] is huge for the industry,” he adds. “Tourism is very important for jobs in Colombia – around nine per cent of the whole employment picture. So, once we’ve controlled the virus situation, we need to be part of the solution.”
The country has gone some way to mitigating the psychological effects of Covid-19 by bringing in a “Tourism Biosecurity Stamp” – an innovation as yet unique in Latin America, and hailed as a positive move by the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). It will be used to certify that hotels, airports, airlines and tourist attractions are maintaining proper standards when it comes to hygiene and social distancing. “I would say ‘trust’ is the main word in the ongoing reestablishment of the tourism sector,” Salcedo says. “This is an important initiative for regaining the trust of travellers in international destinations.”
He is optimistic that Colombia will recover quickly from the crisis. “We are a resilient country,” he nods. “I don’t need to explain the security issues of our past. We know how to stand up quickly – and we know how to restore our economy. Tourism is no different.”
