For the travel industry, it is clear and done: a vacation to Curaçao or Bonaire is completely safe and responsible. The second wave has long seen a spike in the interest in travel to the Caribbean part of the Kingdom, after the cabinet announced that the islands have been exempted from the advice not to travel abroad for a holiday. In recent days, enthusiasm has waned, say travel organizations such as Corendon and TUI that offer trips to Curaçao and Bonaire.
“It may be that the increasing infections play a role in this, people have become more cautious, says Corendon spokesman Audrey Denkelaar. Code yellow currently applies on Curaçao, Bonaire and since Thursday also Aruba. The fact that the islands were popular in recent weeks gives a distorted picture, according to travel organizations. After all, there are currently hardly any alternatives available for flying to the sun. “But it is still not even half of the number of trips we carried out around this period last year,” says TUI spokesman Petra Kok.
The number of infections in Curaçao is now increasing and a number of measures have been tightened. According to Frank Oostdam, chairman of the General Dutch Association of Travel Companies (ANVR), this increase is not due to tourists visiting the island. Traveling to those areas is still justified in his view. “But nowadays it seems morally reprehensible to take a holiday abroad. That annoys me very much. ”
The OMT, which advises the cabinet during the corona crisis, states in an advice published last week that holidays played a major role in the emergence of the second wave last summer. They have led to many new sources of infections in the Netherlands. The OMT warns of the risks of travel and the consequences for importing the virus, because people may behave differently at the holiday destination and follow the general measures less well.
Oostdam of the ANVR: “It may well be that tourism has given the second wave in the Netherlands a push, but I dispute the idea that it was caused by tourists. It doesn’t matter where you are, as long as you behave. ” This also applies to travelers who now go to Curaçao. “On Curaçao, the number of infections is relatively much lower than here.”
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