Holidays in the wake of the Chilean earthquake

The situation in Chile with regards tourism is really that the earthquake has not affected operations.

The main destinations for holidays to Chile are the Atacama Desert in the far north, Patagonia in the far south and the Lake District in the central south.

The Atacama is 1,300 miles north of the epicentre so there has been no damage reported at all.

Patagonia/Torres del Paine is some 500 miles south of the epicentre and again, no damage has been reported.

The Lake District is closer to the epicentre so the earthquake was felt as a significant tremor but not apparently sufficient to cause any structural damage to buildings or infrastructure.

The main issue and problem is with Santiago. Almost all traffic into and out of Chile passes through Santiago.

Whilst the city generally stood up to the quake well, there are some buildings which have developed large cracks. By and large, the city is running normally.

Authorities and leaders of the most important food suppliers, supermarkets and gas providers have assured that food, gas, water and electricity are safe in Santiago and there is no risk of shortage of any kind.

Monday 1st March, the first working day after the quake, the city actually looked mostly normal. Some companies could not open since they had to fix some non-structural damage.

Hotels in Santiago are in good shape. Some have decided to block new reservations in order to be able to carefully inspect all of their rooms.

Where the earthquake is really impacting holidays to Chile, is at the airport.

The passenger transit area suffered some damage so all operations have had to stop whilst repairs are made.

This has also affected security systems in the airport meaning that temporary measures and systems have had to be put in place.

The capacity of the airport is severely restricted at the moment though passenger flights are now beginning to land as of the 2nd March.

There are now some tented areas set up for use by police and security personnel to screen passengers. However, this does not allow anything like the normal flow of passengers (25,000 a day).

Currently the only flights being allowed in and out are ‘emergency’ flights which is to say airlines are being allowed to transport only people who have been left stranded by the situation.

‘Normal’ passengers are not being allowed to resume travel as yet.

So, whilst the normal holiday destinations in Chile are open for business as usual, new arrivals can’t get there so presumably things are pretty quiet…

I would like to stress that this update is specific to holidays in Chile and therefore takes no account of the high human cost of the earthquake.

We are lucky in that Pura’s team on the ground in Chile are safe and well. There are others who are far less fortunate and our thoughts go out to them.

Our best policy is to keep tourism moving into the country as the last thing Chile needs is to lose valuable visitor dollars.