miércoles, 8 de julio de 2020

COLOMBIA, NEPTUNO AND COVID-19, JULY

Although our entire team is currently working from their own homes rather than from the office, we want to keep you up to date on the current situation in Colombia:
  • In general:
    • Currently 124,494 COVID-19 cases have been identified in Colombia, thereof 51,861 are considered fully recovered and 4,359 ended fatal (as of 08th July 2020).
    • They are conducting more tests.
    • The Colombian government extended the general curfew, initially imposed nationwide end of March, until August 1st. 
    • Supermarkets, pharmacies and hospitals, as well as almost all small businesses, museums and libraries are operating again under strict biosecurity protocols. Educational institutions still stay closed until further notice.
  • Tourism:
    • The colombian airports are implementing the international biosecurity standars to resume national and international air traffic*
      (*The measures taken so far have already been proven successfull during the past 3 months for more than 200 humanitarian flights - there were no infections of crew members.)
    • In compliance with the biosecurity protocols, various hotels re-opened in July.
    • Until August 31st international air traffic is completely suspended**. Tickets are avaibable since June 1st.
      (**Transportation of food and medicines as well as humanitarian reasons are the only exceptions.)
    • National air traffic is currently still completely suspended. As soon as possible there will be flights to cities that are not affected too heavily (current state).
    • All parties in the tourism value chain (hotels, local service providers, airlines, and ourselves) are still asking that customers are advised to rebook rather than cancel!
  • Neptuno:
    • Our office will be closed until August 1st, but during that time you can reach us at our home office on our mobile phone numbers, by email or on our emergency number (+57)3202240871.
    • We actively use this imposed break and are working hard on the following points:
      • Internal trainings
      • Development of new products
      • Optimization of internal processes
      • Update of our homepage
      • Creation of the 2021 price catalogue
      • Trainings for our partner travel agencies worldwide
      • Also, as you can see above, we keep inventing new ways to maintain ourselves entertained during the isolation (e.g. Camila sews for herself and friends, Christiane keeps producing masterpieces on canvas, Jaqueline bikes with her husband and Janah enjoys a day at the lake.)
We sincerely hope that you, just like us, managed to get through the last couple of months sucecessfully and also take a positive approach to the upcoming ones!
The entire tourism industry is experiencing difficult times, however, from Neptuno's point of view, we are positive that together we are going to emerge from the CoVid19 situation strengthened and, very soon again, have your clientes explore this impressive country.

Of course we are also very curious if and/or which changes the tourism industry will experience after this phase - will we return to the usual "normality"? Have the customers developed a different awareness of the environment and globalisation?
We are very excited and curious to see what will happen in the near future!

We will keep you posted about the further developments in Colombia. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact your local travel agent.


Stay healthy and well entertained at home!

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