Dr Aumea Herman, Te Marae Ora Secretary of Health; CEO Cook Islands Tourism Halatoa Fua; and Ben Ponia, Chief of Staff, Office of PM Henry Puna. Photo/Supplied
Despite PM Jacinda Ardern dampening down the opening up of an Akl-Raro travel bubble soon, Cook Islands Tourism in collaboration with the Prime Ministers Office and Te Marae Ora (MOH) have officially launched ‘Cook Islands Promise’ a commitment to protect locals and visitors from Covid-19.
“There’s a new norm in the travel, and as you’ve seen in different destinations that have opened, there’s new procedures and protocols in place to ensure that there’s minimum risk of spreading the virus once we’re open,” says Cook Islands Tourism CEO Halatoa Fua.
Tourism contributes to 70 percent of the country’s GDP so the initiative is the government's plan to welcome international visitors.
“We’re keen to have flights resume as early as possible,” says Ben Ponia the Chief of Staff of PM Henry Puna, “We’re ready to engage and open when New Zealand is.”
The new norm will mean all tourist operators, local services and visitors will commit to physical distancing and good hygiene practises.
The Cook Islands Promise works from three different zones. “General Zone, which are all the areas of the industry, the focus is on pragmatic physical distancing and good hygiene measures,” says Fua.
“We also have the Explore Zone, which will include public facilities, venues, transportation of all kinds.
“We also have the Stay Zone which applies to our accommodation properties. And this focuses on safeguarding the guests.”
Since 16 April, the Cook Islands was declared Covid-19 free and the Health Ministry made significant investment in capital infrastructure and Covid-19 treatment supplies.
“We have 10 beds that can cater for negative pressure rooms, we’ve got respiratory equipment, we have ventilators, some of these were already in-house, but we’ve managed to secure more. We have PPE gear,” says Te Marae Ora Secretary of Health, Dr Aumea Herman.
“Just under 200 test cartridges so that if we were to suspect that there was a case here, we could do it within two hours,” he says.
Next week, Cook Islands Tourism will start implementing its Kia Orana Plus rapid training programme about the Promise. Cook Islands Tourism anticipate working with 3000 people.