Saturday 31 December 2005
Uncertainty about tourism figures
ARUBA – It is not clear whether the tourism is affected by the Natalee Holloway case. Aruba Tourism Authority (ATA) has not announced yet how many tourists had visited Aruba between July and September.
The October figures show a drop. “Very bad, Aruba’s economy depends on the tourism. We must know what the situation is”, is the opinion of the AVP.
It is incomprehensible that the tourism-minister Edison Briesen does not realize that something is wrong. The AVP is concerned about the tourism. It is irresponsible not to know whether there is a Holloway-effect.
AVP wants a meeting with the taskforce, the parliament, and the minister in early 2006 to talk about a marketing plan. Recently, the Central Bank of Aruba and the Aruba Airport Authority (AAA) reported alarming figures about the tourism.
According to the Bank, the cruise passengers have dropped with almost 40 percent in October of this year. The hotel occupancy was almost 78 percent in October. The Bank couldn’t give the results in the months July up till September, because they depend on the data from ATA that were not available.
Also compared to last year, the airport of Aruba registered fewer passengers that entered Aruba. According to AAA-director Peter Steinmetz, the 2004 amount of passengers (1.7 millions) is not feasible in 2005. His opinion is that this has directly to do with the disappeared American teenager, Natalee Holloway.
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The "Holloway-effect" has hit Aruba where it hurts. All done by one 110-lb human hurricane named Beth.
Time to turn up the heat for 2006. More states need to get involved.
On 12-29 “Diario” wrote:
According to Otmar Oduber
ATA’s duty is to publish the tourism numbers
It has been more than 6 months since they’ve done this
12/29/2005
ORANJESTAD(AAN): Otmar Oduber, from the AVP faction, signaled during a press conference of the green party, that it is very troublesome and reproachable that the Aruba Tourism Authority (ATA), for the last 6 months hasn’t published tourism numbers. snip
The parliamentarian also said that Aruba received 42,000 less tourists from cruise ships in 2005, compared with 2004.
If one multiplies this by the average amount of money that they would have spent in Aruba, which is $112, Aruba potentially lost more than 4 million dollars.
Oduber also indicated that there were 4.2% less travelers who passed through our airport, which could turn into 10%, which is an alarming effect that cannot continue.
On 12-30 “Diario” wrote:
While Minister of Tourism continues to hide
Tourism is faltering
12/30/2005
ORANJESTAD (AAN) – Aruba’s pillar of the economy, tourism, is not well placed and as aren’t its foundation as was the case 7 years ago, because in the last 4 years tourism has been going backwards.
Not even when the MEP government tried to let people believe that tourism has increased, the reality shows that hotels are not filling up anymore as they once were, and worse now in this season in which it’s increasingly clear that things do not bode well.
Cruise ship tourism has decreased and the quantity of passengers who have transited [through Aruba] has also dropped, while hotels which were once at 100% occupancy in high season, now painfully reach a 60% rate of occupancy.