Natalee Holloway: Boycott Aruba? Sounds Like B&W has his own reasons not to go. (The B&W travel Guide to Aruba)

Although Chuck Geiss of Birmingham’s ‘Black & White’, is against the Aruban boycott in name and claims that it will not work; he seems to have come up with many of his own reasons why not to go. This may actually be more convincing than Gov. Riley’s words.

I do grow tired of the argument that there are missing people in Alabama argument. Frankly its a nonstarter, a too simplistic argument and a poor comparison. First, Alabama is far from the tourist destination that Aruba is last time I checked. Secondly, this is not about boycotting because of a missing person. It is a called boycott due to a proposed cover up and shoddy investigation. The age old adage where “the cover up is worse than the crime;” however, in this case the crime may be much worse.

To B&W, Boycott be damned. However, the B&W Aruba travel brochure may not be one the the Aruba tourism board takes to kindly to.

Boycott or no boycott, Aruba is not a country worth visiting, unless you enjoy traveling four hours to a destination with attractions that you could easily find much closer to home. With the exception of a cluster of tourist hotels on the western side of the island, all of which offer beautiful beaches, conditions on most of the island prove that travel brochures are mostly hype.

Wow, he further goes on to give a less than Fodor’s type description of Aruba.

Aruba is a 77-square-mile rock that reminds me more of a third-world banana republic than an island paradise … Travel south on the island and you’ll find conditions that resemble Haiti; mostly cinder-block structures, trash littering front yards and roadsides, and seedy haunts that double for brothels, crack houses, and God knows what.

There are other reasons not to visit Aruba, besides the fact that justice for a missing teenager has been sadly derailed. Aruba is a corrupt Caribbean island, and has been so for quite a long time. Today, drugs and money-laundering control an economy that is supposedly driven by 750,000 annual tourists, 70 percent of whom are from the United States.

The point truly being with Chuck Geiss’ article is that the Natalee Holloway story has been front and center for all to see. People can make their own decisions on whether they wish to travel to Aruba or not. Alabama Governor Bob Riley is telling people what they already know.

The problem I have with Aruba with respect to the Holloway case is that the judicial system is a virtual Twilight Zone. Very little of what you hear or read is real; there are only empty words and a few meaningless deeds. As for travel destinations, there are plenty of better island vacation spots than Aruba, and you surely don’t need Bob Riley to tell you that.

(Full article)