Aruba: “The tourism has been doing a little better in the past months. Really?

One really needs to wonder whether anything can believed anymore coming from Aruba. Upon implementing the Tourism Fund, backed by the Central Bank, we hear more utter nonsense come from Aruban officials as to the state of their tourism. You have not been honest about Natalee Holloway, why would anyone think they would be honest about their tourism?

“That’s exactly what’s happening now”, said Eman.   “The tourism has been doing a little better in the past months.   The number of visitors has been dropping with a worrisome average of 15 percent in the past months.   Nevertheless, we noticed in the budget that the amount for tourism promotion was lowered with 5 million florins.  

When will any Aruban politician be truthfully with their own people? Your tourism has been doing better in the past months? Really? What planet do you live on? We like to call the one we are on earth.

• According to the Bank, the cruise passengers have dropped with almost 40 percent in October of this year (2005). The hotel occupancy was almost 78 percent in October 2005.
• 3rd Qtr 2005: The 3rd quarter from 2005 showed a -3.5% decrease of airline passengers.
• 4th Qtr 2005: 7.4% decrease passengers to Queen Beatrix Airport compared to 2004
• The airport of Aruba saw a drop of 12.8 percent in the number of handled passengers in the first quarter of this year.

The number of flight movements dropped with 2.8 percent, announced the Aruba Airport Authority. With 250.585 American passengers, the percentage is lower than last year in the first quarter, namely 15 percent.

• 1st Qtr 2006: In the monthly bulletin of April that the Central Bank of Aruba (CBA) published recently is stated that in the first quarter of 2006, 14.7 percent less tourists visited Aruba than in 2005.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  
• From those figures appeared that tourists in January 2006 spent 15.8 percent less than in 2005.

  

Improving? Hardly. Its getting worse if that is even possible. It has gone from single digit losses to consistent double digit quarterly decreases. Let alone not only is the number of tourists down to Aruba but the ones that actually go are paying less for a room. The only thing that appears to be increasing is inflation.So now with all this loss of government tax revenue from a depleted tourism industry, the people of Aruba will have further tax funded social programs taken away from them due to the fact that The Tourism fund will take its money from room taxes.

Once this national ordinance is passed, there will be a separate fund that is independent from the government treasury.   The Tourism-minister will use this fund to pay the pursuers of the promotion policy in the USA, Europe, and Latin America, without being impeded by the problems of liquidity by the rest of the government.   Ã‚  

The tourism fund will be nurtured by the proceeds of the hotel room tax, which means that the proceeds of the tourist sector will be used directly for the promotion of the tourism.  

Anyone want to guess who will lose out on this when such monies are taken from the general tax fund and specifically given to tourism for marketing purposes? That’s right the Aruban people. No wonder the socialized insurance industry could not pay for an Aruban womans brain  tumor treatment. Its all about the tourism at all cost.

Amigoe, July 13, 2006Â  Central Bank positive about Tourism fund bill

ARUBA — There should be a Tourism fund that pays for the promotion of Aruba abroad.   The proceeds of the room tax should go to the fund, which should operate independently from the national budget.   The AVP submitted a draft national ordinance to Parliament in January of 2004.   In a letter to the chairman of Parliament, Mervin Wyatt-Ras (MEP), the Central Bank of Aruba (CBA) now backs the considerations of the initiators.  AVP-leader Mike Eman is very pleased with this positive advice of the CBA.   He says that the AVP-party had submitted the initiative national ordinance to Parliament on January 13^th, 2004.   He hopes that with the support of the CBA, the legislation procedure will go faster.  The purpose of this National Ordinance Tourism fund is to make the payments that the National Government does to the tourist promotions in foreign countries, independently from the treasury problems.  Furthermore, the CBA indicated in her advise that, considering the meaning of the tourist industry for the economy of Aruba and the fact that this industry is very vulnerable for the extreme shocks and economic fluctuations, also the CBA is of the opinion that the promotion of Aruba as tourist destination abroad, may not be hindered by problems of liquidity of the National Government.  “That’s exactly what’s happening now”, said Eman.   “The tourism has been doing a little better in the past months.   The number of visitors has been dropping with a worrisome average of 15 percent in the past months.   Nevertheless, we noticed in the budget that the amount for tourism promotion was lowered with 5 million florins.   The money that was budgeted for promotions in 2005 was 33 million florins and the one in 2006, only 28 million florins.   The reason for this is the bad financial situation of the treasury, and that’s exactly what we want to avoid with the Tourism fund.   The promotion of tourism is way too important to be threatened by financial scarcity by the government.”  Once this national ordinance is passed, there will be a separate fund that is independent from the government treasury.   The Tourism-minister will use this fund to pay the pursuers of the promotion policy in the USA, Europe, and Latin America, without being impeded by the problems of liquidity by the rest of the government.   Ã‚  The tourism fund will be nurtured by the proceeds of the hotel room tax, which means that the proceeds of the tourist sector will be used directly for the promotion of the tourism.  Ã‚