RSSAruba: Prime Minister Nelson Oduber “We live from tourism” … Then act like it
Aruban Prime Minister Nelson Oduber continues to live in a world of denial. Is it 
the police thats under pressure, or MEP? By the way Oduber, 9–11 is not the reason why your tourism hit the skids. Stop fooling yourself and stop lying to your people. Your horrendous tourism decline is pinpointed to one single event, the purposefully botched investigation of Natalee Holloway to protect your own. If you care so much about your precious tourism, then bring justice in this case. Without it your tourism will suffer for decades to come.
“We live from tourism. Since the terrorist attacks in the United States, all sorts of international measures were announced and we have to comply with those. We would like to interpret these well, so that the tourism do not experience unfavourable effects of these.”
If you want cooperation, then get the Dutch police into Aruba ASAP and give them full and complete rein on the Natalee Holloway investigation. They best have the ability to re-interview, re-question and look at this case from day one to the present. You have all the information that is needed, now all you have to do is act on it in a manner that isn’t cronyism.
Amigoe: September 21, 2006 “Aruba police under pressure” (full article below)
Posted September 21, 2006 by Scared Monkeys Amigoe, Aruba, boycott, Crime, Missing Persons, Natalee Holloway, Travel | 56 comments |
Discount Airliner Jet Blue Flies to Aruba … Hardly the Big Spenders Aruba Was Looking For
The first Jet Blue plane flew from New York to Aruba yesterday to the festive reception of 
water cannons. Lets just hope the passengers on board were told what was going on and did not think their plane was on fire.
We hardly think that the 156 leather JetBlue seats are going to make up for the KLM reducing the size and frequency of airplanes traveling to Aruba. All this will attract is a bargain basement price for those who wish to put price over principle.
Let’s remember what the AHATA and government stated that their goal was for Aruabn tourism … “Not only does the AVP want to reverse the trend, but wants to work with a new plan for tourism towards a restructuring from quantity to quality.” Exactly how does contracting with a discount airline get one quality? All it would appear to do is get those that would already go to Aruba there for a cheaper fare. Tourism based on price alone does not increase tourism, it shifts it from one pocket to another.
The addition of Jet Blue is not going to fix the “Monkey Wrench” in the Aruban tourism.
More bad News For Aruba … Money Supply Decreases by Afl 4.1 M in July 2006
From The CENTRALE BANK VAN ARUBA
This can be the only reason why the Aruba government has invited the Dutch police to take over the Natalee Holloway investigation. Month after month tourism decreases and month after month the money supply and revenue does as well. The latest numbers from July 2006 show a decrease in money supply of Afl 4.1 million as well as across the board losses in tourism indicators.
In July 2006, money supply decreased by Afl. 4.1 million to Afl. 2,464.9 million. This decline was the result of an Afl. 3.7 million decrease in net domestic assets and an Afl. 0.4 million net outflow of funds to abroad. The latter caused net foreign assets to fall slightly to Afl. 648.4 million at the end of July 2006, which is Afl. 34.5 million or 5.6 percent higher than in the corresponding month a year earlier.
Other tourism numbers show a continued decline. All three sectors of “stay-over visitors”, “hotel occupancy”, “cruise ship passengers” and “number of cruise ships” all suffered significant losses.
In May 2006, the number of stay-over visitors and their nights spent on the island fell by 6.7 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively, compared to the corresponding month in 2005. Data available for the first five months of 2006 show that stay-over tourists and their nights spent on the island decreased by 10.6 percent and 7.8 percent, respectively. The data on tourist arrivals and nights spent on the island for June and July 2006 are not yet available.According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the average occupancy rate of the hotels contracted by 9.4 percentage points to 76.6 percent in July 2006, compared to the corresponding month a year earlier.
Data published by the Cruise Tourism Authority show that the number of cruise passengers dropped by 16.7 percent in July 2006, compared to the corresponding month of 2005, while the number of ship calls recorded a 43 percent decline.
Read the full Summary of the Monthly Bulletin of the Centrale Bank van Aruba from July 2006.
Posted September 15, 2006 by Scared Monkeys Aruba, boycott, Economy, Natalee Holloway, Travel | 110 comments |
Aruba Tourism Issue Continue, AVP wants more investments in tourism … They should want to solve a crime.
AVP wants more investments in tourism (Dutch version below). The only investment that will
help Aruba’s “black eye” abroad is to personally invest into the truth of what happened to Natalee Holloway and to make sure cronyism never occurs again if harm comes to a tourist. Other than that, what difference does it make what Aruba spends to create a facade?
ORANJESTAD – we have been very disappointed concerning the way the Oduber cabinet minimizes the crisis situation in tourism. Tourism from the United States has decreased and last year approximately 100,000 less tourists came. Worrisome is that studies of Aruba Tourism show the Aruba Tourism Authority (ATA), that the image of Aruba is considerably damaged abroad. That is the opinion of Mike Eman, leader of AVP, after a three day debate concerning the state of the budget of the ministry of tourism and transport.
Posted September 13, 2006 by Scared Monkeys Aruba, boycott, Business, Economy, Natalee Holloway, Politics, Travel | 47 comments |
Jan van der Straten … Same Drug Song Different Island … Aruba … Bonaire, etc
 He says that he has sufficient indications that the island is becoming an alternative for the import and export of drugs. He didn’t want to say what the alternatives are, because he didn’t want to help the underworld to get more ideas. “But I observe that there are a lot of drugs on the island.” (Jan van der Straten)
Amigoe: (9/11/06) Chief of police, Jan van der Straten, Bonaire pleads for point of support coastguard
BONAIRE — Chief of police in Bonaire, Jan van der Straten, pleads for a point of support of the coastguard in Bonaire, same as the case in Curacao, Aruba, and St. Maarten. He says that he has sufficient indications that the island is becoming an alternative for the import and export of drugs.
