What Travelers Need To Know About Colombia Right Now

The travel landscape is ever changing right now.

We caught up with Gilberto Salcedo, Tourism VP of ProColombia to get the latest intel on all things Colombia travel these days.

TravelPulse: How was Colombia tourism impacted by the pandemic and how is it recovering now?

Gilberto Salcedo: Aware of the immense potential of the country, each of its unique destinations, and the effect of the pandemic, at ProColombia we designed a recovery plan focusing our efforts on adapting to change in an innovative way, facilitating air travel connectivity and strengthening the confidence of international travelers in their ability to visit our destinations safely.

With this plan in mind, we were able to reduce the VAT on air tickets from 19% to 5%. This point was stipulated in the General Tourism Law approved in the Congress of the Republic in December 2020.

These efforts have been paying off in 2021 and the country has been taking the lead in terms of air connectivity. International organizations as relevant as OAG, a global leader in information and data on aviation, place Colombia in the 18th position in the world with the highest capacity of seats for the first week of December 2021, in a ranking that is led by the United States and China. In turn, within the Latin American markets, our country's air capacity is in third place, only surpassed by Mexico and Brazil.

During 2021, Colombia reports 35 new air routes to Canada, the United States, México, Perú, Dominican Republic, Chile, Panamá and Curacao. Today we can say that Colombia has recovered 92.3% of the places and 88.4% of the frequencies it had in February 2020, before the pandemic. Today, 26 airlines link Colombia with 25 countries, with over 1.000 weekly international frequencies. Currently, the country is directly linked to various American cities such as Miami, Fort Lauderdale, New York, Orlando, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Washington. That means over 64,000 seats are available per week, bringing Americans and Colombians together.