Almost a month after Miami reported that it would allow tourists to get vaccinated in the city, and the same announcement was subsequently made by New York, travel to the United States has gained momentum.
“I traveled from Friday April 16 to Sunday April 25 to Florida because I had a marriage, but I previously found out if I could get vaccinated there”, Said Andrea Sánchez Ramírez, a Colombian tourist.
“It was a simple process, I did not have to make an appointment, I simply went to the health center, passed some filters, filled in my information in a QR code and chose the Janssen vaccine. Then a military man applied it to me and they gave me a Gatorade while I waited for the statutory 15 minutes”, He added.
The numbers, although they are still not very exact and cannot be exclusively attributable to this’ vaccination tourism‘, they do present an approach to the trend.
According to Migration Colombia, so far this year 362,340 Colombians have traveled to the North American country, of which 83,583 were registered in January and 45,797 in February. There, tourism, however, only accounted for 38.8% and 48.5%, respectively, of the reason for passenger travel.
March, for its part, although it had a similar number of travelers to January, with 83,573, presented a participation of 59.7% from the tourism sector.
Para Josian Chevallier, the vice president of sales and co-founder of Viajala, “lThe search curve was slightly steeper for Miami after there because of the recent surge in speculation about vaccination in the United States.”.
Consequently, April, the month in which the city’s official pronouncement was made, left a total balance of 95,410 Colombians traveling to that country, where 60.4% did so with tourism as their main motive.
However, May has been the great captor of the possible effects of this ‘vaccination tourism’, because although it is not possible to give certainty about the reasons for travel, migratory flows show that only in the first 11 days of this month they traveled 53,977 people to the US, that is, 56.5% of the total for April.
And it is that as María Fernanda Rosero, Product Manager of Viajes Falabella comments “Clearly, the opening of this destination for vaccination has driven the increase in reserves during the last month and this trend is expected to continue in the following months”.
Currently Miami, New York and Orlando are the most booked destinations in this agency, registering a growth of 863% between May 1 and 23, compared to April 1 and 23.
ROUTES, TRAVELERS AND AIRLINES
Regarding the air operation, according to information from Civil Aeronautics, Colombia currently has 24 routes and 261 frequencies to the United States.
In that country, added to examples such as Miami and New York, which allow tourists to be vaccinated, another 27 of the 50 states are not requiring residency to apply immunizers.
Among them are cases such as Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Texas and Ohio.
“Together with my mother and my sister, we traveled on May 9 to West Lafayette, a city in the state of Indiana. The only thing they asked us for was a passport, personal information and an address that could even be that of a hotel”, Noted Karla Isabela Martínez, another young 24-year-old tourist.
“We decided to apply the vaccine there because we checked and my mother would be vaccinating her practically at the end of the year here in Colombia, so we preferred to anticipate“, He said.
Another of the testimonies is that of Herberth Gracia León, 28, for whom it is incredible that he is already vaccinated while his parents in Colombia have not yet achieved immunity.
Taking advantage of the fact that he is teleworking, he made a trip to the United States where he had the opportunity to get vaccinated first in the state of Utah, but he did not do so due to rumors, which exist in many states, that he could have penalties in his passport.
“But when I got to Miami I made an appointment at one of the CVS pharmacies, I chose the vaccine and they applied it to me without further ado”.
Recently, the Kayak metasearch engine revealed that Fort Lauderdale (1,622%), Dallas (1,444%), Houston (1,229%), Miami (1,052%) Atlanta (841%) Washington (683%), Orlando (638%), New York (507%), Newark (469%) and Los Angeles (459%) are in the ‘top 10’ of the most sought after destinations.
“We observed that The United States is becoming an increasingly sought after tourist destination (…) And the airlines have increased the frequencies due to the demand ”, says Alejandro Lombana, Regional Manager Colombia, Mexico and OLA.
Viva Air, for example, has identified a growth of between 35% and 40% in the demand for its Medellín-Miami route, thus increasing the offer to this destination with between 3 and 4 daily frequencies.
Juan Diego Zapata, commercial director of the airline, also said that from June 10 “our new direct route to Orlando from Medellín will come into operation.”
AVIANCA AND ITS INCREASES
In the middle of this month, Avianca, the airline with the largest number of connections in the country, reported that since May the operation with the city of Miami in the United States would be strengthened.
A) Yes, the offer to the destination consists of more than 30 weekly frequencies and the provision of more than 13,000 seats from cities such as Bogotá, Barranquilla, Cali, Medellín, San Salvador and Managua.
“In line with our vision, we continue to strengthen the operation and service in the places where travelers require it“, Said Silvia Mosquera Chief Commercial Officer of Avianca.
Maria Camila Perez Godoy
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