Colombia has introduced a brand new model manifesto for the vacation spot: ‘Colombia, essentially the most welcoming place on Earth.’
With the restart of worldwide journey on the horizon, the nation goals to stimulate worldwide tourism progress and ignite travellers’ wanderlust by spotlighting the heat and kindness of its populace.
The brand new manifesto, which is led by ProColombia, is the results of intensive quantitative and qualitative analysis, which identifies the core essence of Colombia to be the heat and kindness of its individuals.
Right here Breaking Journey Information chats with Flavia Santoro, President of ProColombia, to search out out extra.
Breaking Journey Information: The place does tourism in Colombia stand in July 2021? Are the borders open to travellers? What necessities are presently in place to gradual the unfold of Covid-19?
Flavia Santoro: Worldwide air connectivity in Colombia is open.
Right now the nation is linked to 22 international locations with 21 airways, which signifies that we have now recovered 62 per cent of the air frequencies we had in early 2020.
And through 2021, 28 new routes have been introduced, flying from the US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Ecuador and Peru and 15 of those have already began operations.
New pointers for the arrival of worldwide travellers to our nation embody the next:
- It isn’t necessary to current a unfavorable PCR check earlier than the flight.
- Travellers should fill out the Verify-Mig type a minimum of one to 24 hours earlier than the flight.
- Travellers should put on masks always.
- They need to report signs related to Covid-19: cough, shortness of breath, sore throat or fatigue and mustn’t board if they’ve these signs.
- Worldwide passengers are obliged to provide actual details about their well being standing, their current contact with suspected or confirmed circumstances of Covid-19, adjust to the directions of the well being authorities and provides precise details about their phone quantity and handle in Colombia. International travellers should present a nationwide phone quantity to allow them to be simply contacted.
BTN: There may be hope the scenario could return to one thing like regular over the approaching months as vaccines start to affect on the virus. What are your ambitions, by way of customer numbers, for Colombia this 12 months?
FS: We’re very optimistic about the way forward for tourism in Colombia.
The nation had been having fun with regular, year-on-year progress in customer numbers previous to the coronavirus pandemic, with the annual variety of guests within the 2012-2018 interval rising at practically double the common world fee.
Additionally, progress between 2014 and 2019 rose 11.6 per cent.
Common worldwide tourism progress within the Americas between 2012 and 2019 was 4.Four per cent, lower than half of the 9.1 per cent Colombia noticed.
We’re positive that we’ll proceed enhancing on the nice numbers that we have now already been registering.
In keeping with a current examine by Despegar, some of the necessary on-line journey companies on the continent, Colombia is among the international locations within the area with the best restoration of its tourism sector above international locations resembling Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and the US.
There are additionally superb projections relating to the arrival of non-resident travellers to Colombia in response to a examine by FowardKeys, which reviews greater than 115 thousand air reservations made to our nation, largely from the US, Chile, Spain, Argentina and France for journey in April – September 2021.
BTN: The nation has seen continued political unrest in current weeks – is that this impacting on reopening, or tourism promotion, plans?
FS: The world has confronted extraordinarily difficult occasions because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Colombia has not been an exception.
Nevertheless, our nation is an instance of how troublesome occasions may be reworked in a constructive manner.
With a wealthy and numerous historical past Colombia has been by intervals of transition and progress, all the time remaining resilient with a spirit of heat and openness at its coronary heart. We all know we’ll rise once more stronger collectively from the present scenario.
We are going to proceed to make each effort to advertise the immediate restoration of our tourism business, we’re working to adapt the sector to the brand new necessities of worldwide and native travellers.
We strongly consider tourism is a robust and transformative software for native communities with an incredible affect on the event of the areas and we need to leverage this.
Colombia has undergone a constructive transformation lately, and we have now earned recognition as a should go to vacation spot and key business ally for a lot of markets.
Individuals who go to Colombia know that Colombians are extraordinarily pleasant, welcoming, and heat!
There isn’t a doubt that these days, Colombia is among the trendiest locations.
We’re proud to received recognition on the World Travel Awards Latin America Gala Ceremony in 2020.
These identical awards nominated the nation once more this 12 months in 22 classes highlighting our biodiversity and cultural wealth.
We have now additionally been thought-about a profitable instance of innovation and social transformation and as we proceed to welcome guests and present them that Colombia is a contemporary and evolving nation, we consider our popularity as a secure, pleasant and inclusive nation will solely proceed to strengthen.
BTN: Because the market begins to reopen, ProColombia has launched a brand new, consumer-facing manifesto for the nation. What are you able to inform us about that?
FS: Sure, I’m delighted to announce the vacation spot’s new model manifesto is ‘Colombia, essentially the most welcoming place on Earth.’
At a time when a heat welcome, a form embrace and a sense of true group has by no means been so necessary, we really feel that our daring but easy message encapsulates what international travellers are searching for.
To make clear, we performed intensive quantitative and qualitative analysis with greater than 1,500 surveys and focus teams with Colombians and foreigners to determine what the core essence of Colombia is and finally, the heat and kindness of our individuals lay on the coronary heart of it.
When individuals say you may choose a spot by its individuals, I couldn’t agree extra and that is exactly why Colombia has chosen to construct its new manifesto narrative across the heat and kindness for which our individuals are identified.
The worldwide launch will probably be on Monday, July 19th and whereas we recognize that these with wanderlust might have to attend a bit of longer earlier than experiencing the heat of
Colombia first-hand, we invite travellers and journey commerce alike to expertise ‘essentially the most welcoming place on Earth’ by way of our devoted ‘Neighbourhood of Neighbourhoods’ webpage.
Designed to seem like a map of Colombia with native communities, the interactive ‘map’ will assist guests uncover every of the six Colombian areas, showcasing it as a melting pot of cultures, flavours, rhythms and hues all underpinned by a constant, acquainted and native welcome.
With genuine video content material and native narratives, we hope the ‘Neighbourhood of Neighbourhoods’ webpage will act as an extension of Colombia’s group, demonstrating its welcoming ethos and intensive providing.
We prefer to say ‘no matter you might be searching for and no matter your wants, Colombia is a spot the place you don’t must knock, as a result of the door is all the time open’.
BTN: The brand new marketing campaign seeks to put the individuals of Colombia as central to its providing. How is that this completely different from how the nation has been promoted up to now?
FS: We extremely worth the Colombia Nation Model; it’s an asset that has knowledgeable the world about our fantastic nation for the final ten years.
First, the message was “Colombia is Ardour”.
It centered on exhibiting the creativity, resourcefulness, expertise and fervour that characterises Colombians.
It served to reawaken a way of nationwide belonging and because of this basis, in 2012, we moved to “The Reply is Colombia,” a message centered on telling the world that we had been the reply to all its wants.
With this message, we centered on utilizing details and information to exhibit the necessary progress that Colombia had made by way of competitiveness.
With “The Reply is Colombia,” we determined to align the campaigns to advertise ProColombia’s strains of labor: non-mining and non-energy exports, overseas direct funding and worldwide tourism.
ProColombia will incorporate these campaigns into the brand new Manifesto whereas retaining lots of the prior campaigns’ parts and messages.
This manifesto has been created to get again to the start of all of it, because the research carried out exhibit that Colombians’ heat is what we’re identified for globally.
We’re getting again to individuals, to what makes us distinctive.
BTN: How necessary is tourism to Colombia and the way do you count on this to alter over the approaching years?
FS: Within the final decade, tourism in Colombia has grow to be an necessary supply of overseas change and employment for the nation.
President Duque has referred to as the sector “the brand new petroleum”.
In 2019, the tourism sector reached historic figures: 4.5 million non-resident guests arrived within the nation, a rise of three per cent in contrast with 2018; resort occupancy was 57 per cent (the best within the final 15 years) and generated 6,751 million {dollars}, two per cent greater than in 2018, which makes it the non-mining vitality sector that generated essentially the most overseas forex that 12 months.
Final 12 months was undoubtedly a 12 months of excessive expectations for the sector.
Nevertheless, the pandemic compelled Colombia to alter plans and shortly adapt to the brand new situations.
So, we took isolation as a chance to organize a secure reactivation of the tourism sector and at ProColombia we created a restoration plan with three priorities: adapting to alter, facilitating air connectivity and producing confidence within the worldwide traveller to go to Colombian locations.
For us sustainability is greater than an attribute, it’s the coronary heart and the pillar of our tourism business.
We’re making regular progress on this regard.
For instance, the ministry of commerce, business and tourism reformed the overall tourism regulation, placing sustainability as a basic axis.
It now formally recognises that the safety of the atmosphere and native communities is crucial for the restoration of the Colombian tourism business after the pandemic.
As well as, we’re the second most biodiverse nation on the earth; ornithologically, we come high with greater than 1,900 species of birds, we additionally come high for our orchids and lately for butterflies too, as declared by the Pure Historical past Museum of London’s examine.
Additionally, we’re second place for amphibians, third for crops and reptiles and fourth for mammals.
This implies nice accountability that we embrace with whole dedication.
Extra Data
ProColombia is a authorities entity chargeable for selling worldwide tourism and overseas direct funding in Colombia, non-mining vitality exports and the nation model.
By means of its nationwide and worldwide community of workplaces, it provides Colombian corporations help and complete recommendation by providers or devices centered on encouraging the design and execution of their worldwide methods, in addition to facilitating the technology and growth of enterprise alternatives.
Pictures: ProColombia
