NEWS: Windstar Star Breeze arrives in Colombia and is the first cruise docked at the Port of Cartagena, after more than a year and a half. This means the cruise season 2021-2022 officially begins in the country.
So far, 26 cruise lines are projected to arrive in Cartagena and seven in Santa Marta, both cities located in the Greater Caribbean region of the country. This represents a recovery of 57 per cent of the calls the country had for the 2019-2020 season.
The Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism, MarÃa Ximena Lombana Villalba, said, “We continue working for the safe economic reactivation of the country and its tourism sector. In addition to what has been achieved for the return of shipping companies to the country, we have made great efforts to comply with the biosecurity measures implemented in the city and activate all the actors in the chain.”
Windstar Star Breeze arrives in Colombia and in addition, she highlighted the measures determined in a new legal framework where, “It was requested that the crew of the cruise ships must be vaccinated and the vessels must have effective measures aimed, if there are positive cases of COVID-19, to identify symptomatic passengers and have spaces available for isolation.”
Windstar Star Breeze arrives in Colombia and reached the Cartagena coast with 312 passengers and 190 crew members. The navigation is on a 14-day itinerary that visits the destinations of Aruba, Curaçao, Colombia and Panama.
Windstar Star Breeze arrives in Colombia and the local tour for the cruise passengers included a visit to San Felipe Fortress, the Old City, as well as an exclusive Colombian coffee tasting.
Other lines already have planned to arrive in Cartagena such as Celebrity Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Scenic Luxury Cruises, Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America, Princess Cruises and MSC Cruises; and for Santa Marta the Norwegian and Ritz Carlton Yacht, among others, are expected to arrive.
For Flavia Santoro, president of ProColombia, the agency in charge of promoting tourism in Colombia, says, “This is a key sector for the development and safe economic reactivation of the country because it generates income of more than $60 million per season. For this reason, since last year all the entities linked to the cruise industry have worked on a common purpose to make a safe return for both passengers and destinations.”
Source and photo: https://procolombia.co/ and Puerto Cartagena
