Kralendijk- The Bonaire Hotel and Tourism Association (BONHATA) say they were surprised by Governor Rijna’s press conference Saturday afternoon in which, according to the branch organization ‘extreme measures’ were announced to prevent further COVID-19 infections.

“BONHATA also believes that the virus should be limited as much as possible. However, the tourism sector, as the most important sector of our economy, should be involved in the decision-making process. We have now been living with the worldwide Corona crisis for more than 6 months, of which the last months with the virus actually present on our island. During this time, the tourism industry has invested heavily in measures to allow our guests to enjoy their holidays in a safe manner and to prevent infections to local residents” according to a press statement from BONHATA on Sunday afternoon.

According to BONHATA, as far as they know know from the figures, no infections have taken place in the tourist sector. “Nevertheless, the measures taken now hit this sector the hardest”.

BONHATA says they are of the opinion that the actual problematic sources of contamination have not been sufficiently examined. In addition, despite repeated urgent requests from the organization’s side, they have not been involved in the decision-making process.

Code Orange

“We find it incomprehensible to request a code orange under the current circumstances. There are all kinds of things that seem to have not been considered sufficiently. Currently the infections seem to be spread mainly locally on the island at the moment, while the declaration of code orange mainly affects tourist traffic to and from our island”, wrote BONHATA.

BONHATA also stated they are of the opinion that with the right restrictive measures, tourism on Bonaire would be perfectly possible in a responsible manner. The organization expressed that they hoped that they would be involved in what they called a ‘balanced opening’ as of October 1, 2020. The current 10 days ‘soft lockdown’ was anounced yesterday for the period of September 21 to September 30th, 2020.

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