AMSTERDAM - Travel organizations Corendon and TUI have been receiving significantly more bookings since Tuesday evening for trips to Curaçao. That is after Prime Minister Mark Rutte gave an "urgent" negative travel advice for travel abroad until mid-January at his press conference, but he also said that the Caribbean part of the kingdom is not foreign country.

"We saw the bookings to Curaçao go up immediately after the press conference," said a Corendon spokeswoman. TUI is seeing the same development. A spokeswoman indicates that there is “more interest” compared to recent times. Both organizations cannot yet give specific booking figures.

Curaçao is currently the only Caribbean destination where the Dutch can go on vacation. Code yellow only applies to that island. For example Bonaire is still colored orange on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Rutte's statement “avoid unnecessary travel” during the press conference also created confusion. For example, code yellow still applies to the Canary Islands. "It is difficult to explain to customers that, following one government advice, we do not offer travel to the Canary Islands, while a yellow travel advice applies to that destination," explains the Corendon spokeswoman. TUI still flies to the Canary Islands. “We follow country-specific travel advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the organization said.