In those halcyon days pre-Covid (remember them?) many travellers would still have a nagging doubt as to how safe they would be on a trip to Belfast, thanks mainly to nightly news reports from decades ago about the daily round of violence and killings that once blighted our city.
Today Belfast is one of the safest in Europe, far ahead of the likes of both London and Dublin. We’ve lost count of the times guests have marvelled at how friendly we all are and how much safer they feel here even compared to the streets of their own home towns.
Now though, it’s a different sort of safety that is uppermost in our visitor’s minds, – just how ‘Covid Safe’ are we? And as far as walking tours in general go, and DC Tours in particular, the answer is ‘very’.
For starters, only 5% of Covid transmission happens outdoors, so you’re going to be about 20 times less likely to be exposed to the virus on a walking tour compared to visiting an indoor attraction or experience.
And then there’s all the precautions we take…
DC Tours itself has achieved it’s ‘Good To Go’ / ‘Safe Travel’ accreditation, guaranteeing that you’re in the safest of hands.
And all our guides have completed their WorldHost 2020 Covid training too which keeps them totally focused on everyone’s safety right
throughout their tour.
And how does this translate to your tour experience? Well, we’ll be limiting the numbers on tour groups to make sure people feel comfortable, while keeping in mind that social distancing may be with us for some time to come.
And even when social distancing guidelines are relaxed, we will probably be so used to keeping 2m apart that we will all do it automatically. With this in mind we have invested in a brand new Vox Tour Guide Audio System to allow guests to hear our guides clearly no matter how far apart they wish to stand, right up to 50m (which may be a bit excessive to be honest).
The headsets are thoroughly sanitised before and after every tour, or if you want to use your own earphones that’s no problem at all. Of course if you would prefer a totally contactless tour you don’t need to take a headset, but you might just need to stand a little closer to hear your guide!
And our guides will continue to wear masks for the foreseeable future, just to give you that extra bit of comfort, but there’s no need for you to be wearing masks on the tour if you’d rather not, as we are the ones doing most of the talking.
The guides always carry hand sanitiser too, just in case you forget, so don’t hesitate to ask them if you need any.
And thanks to all our guides being born in the 1960s they’ve all had their jabs already, and just to be sure we scrub them with a wire brush and Dettol every morning too. They don’t like that much but understand that it’s for the greater good.
We have also changed our cancellation policy so that you cancel or postpone your tour up to 2 hours before the start time at no extra cost if you’re worried about anything.
And if you’re still not sure about joining one of our daily scheduled tours there’s always our private tours, or our self-guided audio tours if you really want to take social distancing to the max!
You can read our full Covid Safety page here.
