The Dutch Caribbean is­land of Cu­raçao is hop­ing to fos­ter greater ties with T&T’s tourism stake­hold­ers as part of its on­go­ing COVID-19 re­bound ef­forts says Ja­nine De Windt, re­gion­al man­ag­er of the Cu­raçao Tourist Board.

She ex­plained to the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian that with the lift­ing of re­stric­tions, Cu­raçao is hop­ing that more lo­cals will vis­it its shore, not­ing that it has al­ways been a pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion for T&T na­tion­als.

Speak­ing at the launch of the Cu­raçao ini­tia­tive, brand­ed Feel it for Your­self, which was held at the Mar­riott Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, De Windt said Cu­raçao is en­hanc­ing its lure.

She said two years ago when the pan­dem­ic hit, re­sult­ing in closed bor­ders, both T&T and Cu­ra­cao suf­fered ma­jor loss­es as trav­el ground­ed to a halt.

But with COVID now mov­ing from the pan­dem­ic to the en­dem­ic stage, De Windt said the ini­tia­tive could not come at a bet­ter time, say­ing that Cu­raçao’s tourism sec­tor con­tin­ues to re­cov­er.

Speak­ing about the re­brand­ing ef­forts for the T&T mar­ket, De Windt said, “We want­ed to be the first to pro­mote our des­ti­na­tion be­cause our vis­i­tors from Trinidad al­ways had Cu­raçao at the top of their list.

“This is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant to us since March 10, Cu­raçao is now com­plete­ly open, so whether you are vac­ci­nat­ed or not, you can come,” she added.

Ex­plain­ing that be­fore COVID the route was do­ing “quite well”. De Windt said Suri­name Air­ways, which has an op­er­a­tion in Trinidad, of­ten took lo­cals to Cu­raçao.

Vis­i­tor ar­rivals were fur­ther im­proved when Caribbean Air­lines came on board two years ago, of­fer­ing di­rect flights to Cu­raçao which re­sult­ed in tick­et and ho­tel prices be­com­ing more com­pet­i­tive, De Windt added.

This, she said, re­sult­ed in Cu­raçao’s ar­rivals from this coun­try be­ing in­creased by 86 per cent.

And De Windt is hope­ful tourists from T&T will soon tra­verse Cu­ra­cao’s float­ing Queen Em­ma Bridge once more with air­lift back in full swing.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she said part of the is­land’s nu­mer­ous charm is its cap­i­tal, Willem­stad, which show­cas­es tra­di­tion­al Eu­ro­pean Baroque and Dutch colo­nial ar­chi­tec­tur­al styles with vi­brant hues of yel­lows, pinks and blues; a favourite vis­i­tor spot.

From April this year, CAL re­sumed its twice-week­ly ser­vice be­tween Trinidad and Cu­raçao, with non-stop, re­turn flights op­er­at­ing on Tues­days and Fri­days.

Janelle Gan­goo, sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive at Caribbean Air­lines, said there were some book­ings from T&T to Cu­ra­cao for April which has since dipped a bit, but is ex­pect­ed to in­crease for the up­com­ing Ju­ly/Au­gust pe­ri­od.

Pana­man­ian car­ri­er Co­pa Air­lines al­so flies to Cu­raçao how­ev­er, it first stops in Pana­ma.

Camille Hack­ett, gen­er­al man­ag­er, Eng­lish and Dutch Caribbean, said this has be­come a well-liked route for T&T na­tion­als who take in the sights and shop­ping ex­pe­ri­ence of Pana­ma be­fore head­ing off to Cu­raçao.

Willem­stad, De Windt added, is al­so known for its du­ty-free shop­ping in down­town Cu­raçao as its 57-acre du­ty-free zone at the har­bour is said to be the biggest of its kind in the Caribbean.

And cater­ing to trav­el in­flux is re­sort de­vel­op­ments with Cu­raçao’s new and re­brand­ed ho­tel de­vel­op­ments backed by the world’s top hos­pi­tal­i­ty brands, De Windt said.

From a ful­ly ren­o­vat­ed Mar­riott, to up­scale all-in­clu­sive op­tions like Dreams and San­dals, as well as new­ly-flagged prop­er­ties like Trade­mark by Wyn­d­ham and Cu­rio by Hilton Col­lec­tion, Cu­raçao of­fers unique ac­com­mo­da­tions.

In ear­ly 2021, San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al an­nounced that it will trans­form the cur­rent San­ta Bar­bara Beach and Golf Re­sort in­to San­dals Roy­al Cu­raçao.

The trans­for­ma­tion will ini­tial­ly in­clude 350-lux­u­ri­ous rooms and suites stretched along the Span­ish Wa­ter Bay and the Caribbean Sea, with fur­ther ex­pan­sion planned in the com­ing years. Al­so, in May 2021, Kunuku Aqua Re­sort be­came a part of the Trade­mark Col­lec­tion by Wyn­d­ham port­fo­lio and in June 2021, Hilton an­nounced the sign­ing of the new­ly opened Man­grove Beach Coren­don Cu­raçao Re­sort as the newest prop­er­ty to join its Cu­rio Col­lec­tion by Hilton port­fo­lio.

This growth, De Windt al­so not­ed, came on the heels of ren­o­va­tions and open­ings on the is­land of three ad­di­tion­al glob­al brands in late 2019/ear­ly 2020, in­clud­ing Cu­raçao Mar­riott Beach Re­sort, Dreams Cu­raçao Re­sort, Spa and Casi­no and Re­nais­sance Cu­raçao Re­sort and Casi­no.

Fur­ther, she said there are sev­er­al bou­tique ho­tels like the Zoetry Cu­ra­cao Re­sort and Spa which opened in De­cem­ber 2021 and is a 72-suite all-in­clu­sive prop­er­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the Cu­ra­cao Tourist Board the is­land wel­comed 40,539 stay over vis­i­tors for March 2022.

From these ar­rivals, it said 64 per cent trav­elled from Eu­rope, 21 per cent from North Amer­i­ca, nine per cent from South Amer­i­ca, four per cent from the Caribbean re­gion and two per cent from the rest of the world.

“In over­all, we wel­comed an av­er­age of 1,351 stay over vis­i­tors per day who spent a to­tal of 391,461 vis­i­tor nights in Cu­raçao,” the board said on its web­site.

It added that Cu­raçao is cur­rent­ly wel­com­ing at least 4.5 times more vis­i­tors com­pared to last year which saw 24,000 vis­i­tors dur­ing the same pe­ri­od.

Apart from its sights and at­trac­tions, Cu­raçao is al­so tout­ing it­self as the Caribbean’s next well­ness des­ti­na­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to med­ical prac­ti­tion­er and pro­fes­sion­al well­ness con­sul­tant Eileen Ise­bia the is­land not on­ly of­fers tra­di­tion­al med­ical pro­ce­dures like botox and fillers but there’s an in­creas­ing de­mand for yo­ga re­treats even from cor­po­rate en­ti­ties.

“We have been do­ing the me­di­al pro­ce­dures and med­ical treat­ments and get­ting pa­tients from the Caribbean and we al­so have pa­tients com­ing in from Cana­da.

“And al­so post-COVID we have peo­ple com­ing for re­treats which is boom­ing. We just host­ed a re­treat for vis­i­tors from Czecho­slo­va­kia and at the end of the month we have a group from Cana­da,” Ise­bia said.

Re­gard­ing T&T’s in­ter­est in this mar­ket she said this has been pick­ing-up and is ex­pect­ed to in­crease.

“We have a very good work re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad. There are com­pa­nies in Trinidad who have work­ers in Cu­raçao so we have the con­nec­tion al­ready.

“Us­ing that con­nec­tion we want to of­fer cor­po­rate well-be­ing pack­ages,” Ise­bia said, adding that there’s grow­ing in­ter­est from T&T na­tion­als to par­tic­i­pate in oth­er well­ness ac­tiv­i­ties like beach yo­ga.

Food and drink are al­so in­clud­ed in new prod­uct of­fer­ings for Cu­raçao.

De Windt re­vealed that sev­er­al new restau­rants have opened to give vis­i­tors a wide va­ri­ety of cuisines in­clud­ing en­joy­ing li­on fish in cre­ative ways, from tartare to que­sadil­las.

Al­so, vis­i­tors can al­so check out the is­land’s first gas­trop­ub, BKLYN, to have de­li­cious cock­tails paired with jack­fruit bao buns in a live­ly set­ting.