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.
That must be why my e-mails to him came back as "not delivered". Minister Briesen must be down in his spider hole, afraid to raise his head. I'm US mailing a hard copy to Minister Briesen tomorrow, and copies to Prime Minister Nelson Oduber and the Aruba Tourism Authority.