In order to protect the health and safety of clients and staff members, adventure travel specialist Tucan Travel has cancelled all tours that travel to or within Mexico until 10 July 2009. Tours which have imminent departures or are currently travelling in Mexico will be re-routed to pass swiftly through or avoid the areas identified by the World Health Organisation as being affected by swine flu. A full list of affected tours is available on our website at:
www.tucantravel.com/mexico-swine-flu-tour-changes.

Anyone booked on a cancelled tour should contact Tucan Travel immediately. Travellers may change onto any alternative tour of the same value for no additional cost. If this is not possible, clients will receive a full refund of all monies paid to Tucan Travel. All administration costs will be waived, however Tucan Travel will not provide any additional compensation as the reason for the cancellation is outside of our control.

Any Adventure Tours or Discovery Tours which are due to end in Cancun will now be re-routed to avoid this part of Mexico and will end in Belize City instead on the scheduled end date. Itinerary changes are still to be confirmed. Tucan Travel will offer advice about how to travel from Belize to Cancun if travellers are unable to change their flights, however no compensation will be offered and onward travel to Cancun or other destinations in Mexico will be at the traveller’s own risk. The standard booking conditions will apply to any changes or cancellations made by clients for these tours.

An Adventure Tour consisting of 10 passengers and a tour leader departed Cancun on 26 April 2009. Tucan Travel has advised the tour leader to escort the group out of Mexico as soon as possible. The group will be provided with masks and advised to follow World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines for hand hygiene and coughing and sneezing etiquette. As Adventure Tours usually travel on local transport, Tucan Travel will replace this with locally hired private transport.

An Adventure Tour consisting of 7 passengers and a tour leader departed Antigua on 24 April 2009. Tucan Travel has advised the tour leader to continue as far as Belize City and end the tour on 3 May 2009, rather than continuing on to Cancun.

Tours from Antigua, Guatemala travelling south through Central America and all tours departing after 10 July 2009 are still open for bookings and should operate as normal. However we are monitoring the swine flu situation carefully and will review this position if necessary, then announce any changes closer to the scheduled departure.

Tucan Travel general manager Bec Whiffin said the itinerary changes and cancellations were crucial to protect the health and safety of clients and crew. “We have been constantly monitoring the situation since the first reports came out. There has been a lot of confusion in the media over the past few days, with conflicting information from government agencies and health organisations about whether travel to Mexico is safe right now. But our number-one priority is to keep our clients and crew safe. The decision to cancel tours which include Mexico has been made after careful consideration of WHO swine flu health alerts, national travel advisory services and information from our local contacts in Mexico. We are doing our best to minimise the risk to our clients and crew and hope that the situation will soon be resolved so that we can return to Mexico as soon as possible. I hope that this clarifies the situation somewhat for travellers and travel agents,” Ms Whiffin said.
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