blog details

  1. Home
  2. Jewelry
  3. With good wind and good sea |Flavia Santoro column

Hot Articles

Category

With good wind and good sea |Flavia Santoro column

The cruise industry has all the relevance for the tourism promotion of Colombia and for the economic development of destinations.Its importance dates back to 2006, when this sector was reactivated, achieving from that moment to put our country and its main port, Cartagena, on the map of travel worldwide. From that year we go from 53 stores to 245 in 2018, which represents an increase of 362 % in arrivals of ships and 687 % in passenger arrivals, going from more than 50 thousand to more than 401 thousand.

Even in 2019, the best year of tourism in Colombia, this industry generated in our country about USD60 million, in addition to the average expenditure per day of a cruise ship was $ 122 and the crew of 70 dollars.

These income contributes to the economic development of the destinations, since once a cruisery arrives at Puerto, the entire production chain is activated contributing to the entry of actors such as tourism guides, taxi drivers, coachmen, transport companies, travel agencies, jewelry stores, restaurants andartisans, among many others. Given its importance, from the zero moment of the pandemic we decided in Procolombia to step forward in favor of the sector and designed a strategy in which we put as a priority the recovery of this industry.

Of course, biosafety became a fundamental axis for the return of the lines, so today the cruises provide a highly controlled environment with rapid response procedures and thus maximize mitigation on board through rapid and quarantine insulation of nearby contacts.

Con buen viento y buena mar | Columna de Flavia Santoro

Even, in response to the new variant, the industry has implemented improved public health interventions such as requesting reinforced requirements for prior shipping tests, increasing the number of trips with passengers and vaccinated crew and increasing the frequency of surveillance tests for crew.

In this sense, and committed to the security of all, in August 2021 we witnessed the return of the cruises to Colombia with the arrival of the Star Breeze, of the Windstar Cruises line, and with which the 2021 season was opened officially to the 2021-2022, in which today we register the programming of 78 arrived to Cartagena, of which, as of December 31 of last year, 21 have been received.

The above represents the arrival of more than 18,400 cruisery and more than 15,700 crew, generating revenues of 3.5 million dollars.In addition, 36 % of maritime connectivity against the 2019-2020 season has been recovered.

We are sure that with the adjustment to resolution 2383, where they add the requirement of the antigen test 48 hours before embargo, we will see a positive response by the cruise lines.

We see with optimism the future of the cruise industry in the country and in that sense we will continue working to recover the programmed places, since this is a fundamental economic engine for the destinations.

*President of procolombia@flaviasantorot