Other Missing Persons Cases In the News

Search for Missing Teen Resumes for Brianna Maitland

Searchers Scour Waters Off Waianae For Missing Surfer, Dustin Gabel

Family Intensifies Hunt for Missing Hiker, Roger Jung

Arrested man might be linked to slaying of Olamide Adeyooye

Natalee Holloway Disappearance Still Weighs on Aruba’s Tourism

It seems like all the focus has been lately in Aruba what effects will the Natalee Holloway investigation have on tourism. Just recently there was an A.M. Digital article, ‘Fewer airline passengers to Aruba in the third quarter of 2005′ and further Aruban tourism concerns, ‘Tourism Officials discuss media coverage of Holloway disappearance’. There was also a rather telling New York Times article entitled, ‘Disappearance Still Weighs on Aruba’s Tourism’.

Lisa and Dan Masciantonio, from Upton, Mass., thought that they would see signs of the investigation into the disappearance of the Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, a case that dominated the cable-news programs throughout the summer. “I expected that I would see posters and ribbons tied around trees, but it seemed to us business as usual,” Ms. Masciantonio said.

Although many Arubans are concerned and consider the event just a tragic one that all wished could be solved, I think what many miss especially those in the tourism industry is just how rather callous it is to continue to reference the effects on tourism rather than focusing on how a missing persons case was handled from the outset and why three suspects remain free today without restrictions.

For Aruban tourism officials to make the following comments does not help their cause in any way. For many people in America its about a missing teenager Natalee Holloway and her parents search for her and search for the facts in her disappearance. It is not about your tourism.

Tourism officials are baffled not only by the case but also by calls to boycott the island. “Never could I have imagined that this could happen to Aruba,” said Marcial Ibarra, the director of business development for the Aruba Hotel and Tourism Association. “We put all our effort into tourism. We live for tourism and have nothing else.”

Read more

Brandywine Heights School District Trip Ramifications from the Natalee Holloway/Mountain Brook Trip to Aruba

Many have wondered what the impact would be on school sponsored trips to foreign locations or similar type trips that were not sponsored by the school but instead consisted of numerous school age students as its common denominator as in the case of Mountain Brook, AL going to Aruba? The result being the disappearance, mystery and investigation as to what happened to Natalee Holloway.

It has been expected that many such trips such as the one Natalee was on will either never happen again, will be much better supervised or parents will think twice as to allowing their children attend such an event.

We can already see some of the ramifications of the well publicized Natalee Holloway disappearance and backlash of school sponsored travel events in the Brandywine Heights School District-sponsored trip to Spain. Schools are obviously going to have to take a much more proactive stance in the protection of those under their care and do the right thing and stand by those decisions if students can not abide by the rules and act responsible. Such is the case where Spanish teacher Anita L. Lewis left her job at a Brandywine Heights District School on October 21, 2005 citing a lack of support for sending three girls home for breaking rules.

A teacher has quit and some parents have retained an attorney after three teenage girls were sent home from a Brandywine Heights School District-sponsored trip to Spain.

Spanish teacher Anita L. Lewis left her job at the high school on Oct. 21.

Her resignation letter cited a lack of support from the administration following the decision by chaperons to send the girls home from the trip to Spain in June.

The reason why the three girls were sent home from the school sponsored vacation was breaking rules one day into the vacation by leaving their hotel room and had unauthorized guests in their room after curfew.

Students Amanda McCrea, Jackie Sodano and Megan Robb, now seniors, were sent home one day into the week-long trip after they left their hotel room and had unauthorized guests in their room after curfew, according to several sources.

Sources said the girls also did not get up in time to meet the rest of the 27-student group for a tour the next day.

Lewis said the chaperons considered the Holloway matter when deciding to send the Brandywine students home.

“We were thinking, ‘the girls can’t be trusted,’ ” she said. “If they are this bold on the first night, what are we in store for eight nights from now?

“Oftentimes tragedies like this (one in Aruba) begin with some poor judgment, and the girls that were on our trip used extremely poor judgment and trusted strange boys.”

Read more

Genetically Engineered Chickens, Lifesaver or Natural Disaster?

As the fear of the Avian Flu spreads around the world, scientists are working on developing a genetically engineered chicken that may be resistant to the flu. Presently, almost all poultry in Asia is being slaughtered to control the possible outbreak of this potentially devastating pandemic. Greenpeace and other organizations are against any genetically engineered food. They feel that natural food is the only food to be available. So do we avoid all genetically engineered food and maybe slaughter all chickens in the impoverished Asian nations, cutting off a vital food source and risk mass starvation and flu epidemics, or work to create a modified version of the chicken that can save millions of lives to protect against any possible contamination of nature?

We compare the two viewpoints in this post.

Natalee Holloway: Fewer Airline Passengers to Aruba in the third quarter of 2005 and “The Prefect Storm”.

Many have pondered and those in Aruban tourism have worried over what the effects would be of the perception of the handling of the Natalee Holloway investigation and its affects on American tourism. From A.M. Digital comes an article with some of the answers.

Although the number of passengers that go through Queen Beatrix International Airport are down this third quarter, -3.5% compared to the same quarter last year, aircraft movements are up 6.2%.

Less passengers from the USA (including Puerto Rico) caused the passenger numbers to have decreased.

A number of factors contributed to the decrease: the unusually high number of hurricanes affecting the US, the high price of oil that affects the cost of jet fuel and the negative media publicity in the US regarding the Holloway case. Contributing to the negative growth was also the Antillean operation; in 2004 Dutch Caribbean Airlines (DCA) was still operating. Only a small part of DCA’s regional network has been taken over by BonairExpress, a smaller airline that doesn’t have the same passenger capacity as DCA.

(Full article)

The numbers are actually shocking as many would have believed that they may have stayed the same or increased as bookings during the third quarter would have been difficult to cancel as many tourists may have been locked into plans or had to suffer penalties for changes. The 3.5% decrease must have been eye opening for the tourism officials in Aruba.

That being said the more telling tourism numbers will be during the 4th quarter of 2005 and the 1st quarter if 2006 when people will have a greater lead time to determine their travel destinations and during the height of the Aruba travel season.

The Aruban tourism official seem to have a need to worry as they met with other “Crisis Communications for the Tourism Industry” at the annual Caribbean Tourism Conference on St. Thomas.

The official also indicated that the Holloway family “had connections” and the media had arrived on the island of Aruba within two days of Holloway’s disappearance. One result of this was that the ratings for FOX news, and the Nancy Grace show had doubled.

Aruban authorities had very little information to report since the investigation into Holloway’s disappearance was on going. However, the public (still) watched the news stories about the missing young woman to hear what the media’s discussion about it.

The victim’s mother was available for frequent media appearances and comments, seemingly taking control of the investigation.

Delegates had numerous questions for the panelists. Among those coming to the microphone was the Director of Tourism for Aruba, who described the disappearance of Natalee Holloway as “the perfect storm“.

Read more