Number of Convention Groups from Latin America Increased Enormously in 2007!

2007 promises to be a tremendous year for Aruba’s tourism industry. The Aruba Tourism Authority (ATA) launched two new commercials for Latin America and the U.S. on both regional and national cable service. For many years, Aruba’s name has been greatly recognized worldwide and to ensure that the island benefits from this opportunity, the commercials highlighted the beauty and tourism qualities of Aruba in colorful and refreshing ways. All this, together with the amount of visitors, different hotel renovations and increase in airlift service, has once again placed Aruba in the top spot.

From January until July 2007, Aruba’s tourism showed a remarkable increase of 6.88% compared to the previous year. The numbers show an increase in the number of visitors, totaling more than 28,000 additional visitors year-to-date.

On the other hand, the Caribbean region showed a decrease of 2% between the months of January to July 2007.

North American Market:

The American market showed an increase of 4.17% from January to July 2007, which represents an additional 12,497 tourists. Both January and February enjoyed great increases of 6.52% and 6.13% respectively, followed by March which excelled with an increase of 10.15%. The summer months of June and July showed an increase of 9.26% and 2.61%. The American market’s increase year-to-date of 4.17% represents a total of 311,888 visitors compared to the 299,391 in 2006.

This is because, in addition to all the marketing efforts done by Aruba, the direct flight options to the island also grew. 2007 has also been a year where many of the hotel renovation projects were completed, increasing the number of available rooms and offering an even higher quality hotel product to its visitors.

The Northeast region of the U.S. remained the dominant region pertaining to the number of visitors from the U.S. through July 2007, with a higher amount of visitors arriving from New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts adding up to a total of 66,623, 40,899 and 41,611 for these markets.

Latin American Market:

According to ATA’s statistical reports, the markets that show a notable increase are Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil totaling to 14.82%, 17.19% and 23.76% for each market. So far this year, a total of 30,247 tourists from Venezuela visited Aruba compared to the 26,342 visitors in 2006. As for Colombia, there were 7,834 visitors compared to the 6,685 the previous year and from Brazil, a total of 4,349 tourists arrived compared to the 3,514 visitors in 2006.

Other noticeable and positive changes were increases in the following markets: Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Mexico, which experienced an increase of 20.32%, 38.97%, 39.13% and 70%, respectively.

After a few years of tourism promotion and investments, today Aruba has become a preferred destination for the Latin America MICE market. According to the convention groups, Aruba’s tourism infrastructure makes it the ideal destination for both small and large convention groups. The results can be measured and appreciated with the presence of groups such as MoviStar from Venezuela, which consisted of more than 550 participants, representing more than one million guilders in on-island investment.

European Market:

The European Market shows some fluctuation and is positively affected by the increase in the Spanish market due to the combination of the charter/cruise packages of Pullman Tours. The Spanish visitors arrive by plane and enjoy an ideal combination of one week land and one week cruise vacation. The Spanish market grew from 428 visitors in 2006 to 4,030 in July year-to-date in 2007.

The UK market also enjoyed a great boost of 29% totaling 5,070 additional visitors, due to an additional First Choice charter flight. The Aruba Tourism Authority continues its efforts to stimulate more charter and scheduled flights, ensuring a constant tourism flow to the island, especially from Europe. Due to irregular air connection in 2007, mostly because of the changing KLM schedule which is less beneficial compared to 2006, the Dutch and Scandinavian markets were greatly affected as their main connection was at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

The Aruba Tourism Authority, AHATA and the Ministry of Tourism are currently undertaking the necessary efforts to convince both ArkeFly and MartinAir to increase their number of flights to Aruba to satisfy the increasing demand for Aruba. In December, MartinAir will add an additional flight and discussions are ongoing with ArkeFly for the possibility of a third flight in 2008. In 2007 there were fewer seats compared to 2005 and 2006.

Holland experienced a small decrease of 0.29% compared to the same period in 2006, from 21,584 to 21,521 visitors. Regardless of the different challenges, there are several convention groups from Holland (Batavus) and Portugal that still opted to visit Aruba with their group. In Europe, Italy is once again starting to show its potential and is growing with a minimal amount of effort and a closer look into that market is set for 2008.

The overall European market enjoyed an increase of 13% compared to the previous year.

Number of nights:

Regarding the amount of nights, the increase was 4.39% in 2007, totaling 3,378,379 compared to the 3,236,310 in 2006. In addition to the number of visitors, the Aruba Tourism Authority also used other indicators to analyze tourism and the number of nights is an important factor.

Conclusion:

The Aruba Tourism Authority is extremely pleased with this year’s results so far, as they clearly indicate that the largest market, which is the U.S., is stable and growing, regardless of the economic challenges worldwide that are momentarily not beneficial for the tourism industry. Also the diversification efforts continue to generate an ample tourism base for Aruba. There are more Latin American countries showing increased interest such as Chile and Ecuador. An example is that the minimal investment done in the early 2007 is already showing positive results with the confirmation of a Chilean group of 100 people accommodated at one of Aruba’s prestigious resorts.

According to Myrna Jansen-Feliciano, Managing Director for the Aruba Tourism Authority, “2007 promises to become a successful year for the tourism industry of Aruba. Month after month, Aruba’s tourism is experiencing a constant increase, indicating that the ATA’s marketing efforts, the different hotel renovations and the upgrades in the tourism product result in a consistent increase in the total number of visitors who are enjoying their vacation on Aruba.”