Aruba Will Survive with or without Natalee Holloway hype

Hype? After nearly eight months and a declining tourism on Aruba that’s what they think this is all about, hype? From Travel Video, comes a wishful and heavily slanted article on tourism that refuses to ask one simple question, but instead posts numbers that follow:

For a country with a population of about 100,000, it received about 344,401 Americans between January-July 2005, posting an 8 percent increase over 2004. This, despite the mysterious disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway who went missing since spring break on the island’s limited area of only 75 square miles Ã¢â‚¬” barely 19 miles long and 6 miles across the widest.

If Aruba’s tourism numbers have not been affected with or without the “Natalee hype”, why have they not been posted? Where are the August through December 2005 numbers? Most importantly, the American tourist numbers visiting the island. Instead they provide us with tourism numbers of other countries that do not come close to the nearly 70% of American tourism that makes up Aruba’s numbers. When they do actually report any relevant ones, the tourism numbers are down drastically.

Arrivals from Canada went up by 5.7 percent to 13, 548, up 11.1 percent to 36,986 from Europe but went down by 1.9 percent with other nationalities. From January to October 2005, Aruba reported cruise passenger arrivals totaled 393,671, down by 9.7 percent from 2004′s 436,089. (Data were supplied as at January 11, 2006)

Like it or not Aruba has been affected by recent events and the continued perception of a lack of an investigation. It really is important that Aruba finally understand this is not about “Natalee Holloway hype”, its about the disappearance and subsequent investigation of Natalee Holloway.

To think that this has not and will not continue to affect numbers is to look away from the obvious. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

(Full Travel Video article)