Amigoe: Conference tourism; new for Aruba

Amigoe; January 10, 2006

Aruba tries to supplement their dwindling tourism with a new twist on a previously used method. The only problem is that is cost one-million florins to do so for ad campaign.

Conference tourism; new for Aruba

ARUBA — According to Scott Wiggins, chairman of Meet Aruba, the island is ideal for conference tourism, but Aruba has to invest one-million florins in advertisement and promotion. The group met last week to determine how to go about this and that.

Meet Aruba is a new subdivision of Aruba Hotel & Tourism Association (Ahata). The members want to start a new market for Aruba, namely the conference tourism. They will try to stimulate the companies that come to Aruba to conference, to extend their stay with a few vacation days. This type of tourism is a supplementary to the group-tourism that already formed 11 percent of the entire tourism in 2004 (about 105.000 nights spent at a room rate between 185 and 295 dollars per night). Meet Aruba had entered a cooperation agreement with the Dutch Board of Tourism and Conventions (NBTC). This way, Aruba can take advantage of their enormous experience in the field of conference tourism. NBTC will promote Aruba in the United States and Canada. Conference tourism is a very special product. Especially multinationals are looking for places worldwide where they can undisturbedly meet with their executives. These companies have professional planners to organize their meetings or they use specialized bureaus. Meet Aruba will have to build up good contacts with this group. NBTC has currently a data base with more than 4000 planners.