Since the disappearance of Natalee
Holloway on May 30, 2005 in Aruba, there have been several calls for boycotts,
including from Alabama's governor. Boycott Watch is reviewing the status of the
boycott after one year, asking what are the real results, if any, of these
boycott calls?
While starting to research the effects
of this boycott, three things were readily apparent. First, Arubans are upset
that boycotts were declared. Second, Aruba has a vested interest in making sure
no such boycotts affect them, especially from the US which accounts for about
two-thirds of Aruba's visitors. Third, Aruba is a country that primarily lives
on the tourist industry.
As such, we could not rely
on data supplied by Aruban tourism officials since they have a vested interest
in reporting record-breaking tourism. We should, however, still expect Aruba to
report accurately, especially when Aruba is asking people to believe what they
say in the Natalee Holloway case. As such, we started looking at official Aruba
statements, but we did not take them as definitive statements. Rather, we chose
to verify those statements and then verify the numbers with tourism data from
other sources. In essence, we expect Aruba to be totally honest and to report
accurate tourism numbers, but we had to be sure.
 Aruba's official tourism website, www.Aruba.com,
touts how Aruba is safe and a wonderful place to visit, and we are not doubting
that. We are strictly looking at tourist data and possible effects from an
Aruba boycott. The Aruba website has a section dedicated to Natalee Holloway
that you can find below the "Ike Cohen's 95th Birthday Charity Fair and Online
Auction" icon. That placement must make sense only in Aruba, especially
considering how Natalee's disappearance has been in the world news for over a
year and few Aruba tourists have the slightest clue as to who Ike Cohen is and
most probably do not care.
One
article appearing on the Aruba.com website is from former
US Congressman and now talk show host Bob Barr titled "Aruba Boycott A Lost
Cause," in which Barr called this consumer action "not a real boycott." In his
article, Barr stated, "Only the president can direct that U.S. citizens,
whether they hail from Alabama or Maine, are not permitted to travel to a
particular event or country." While that is true, we are not talking about a
government action, rather a consumer action by people who are upset at how the
Holloway case is being handled. Tourists do occasionally get killed or go
missing in many countries, that is not the issue. The issue is how Aruba has
been handling the case, which is what sparked a consumer boycott.
In a USA Today
article dated October 30, 2005, Myrna Jansen, the managing
director of the Aruba Tourism Authority was quoted as saying "now everybody
knows Aruba" boasting that Aruba is more popular than ever, and even claimed a
10% increase in tourism, much of it from repeat tourists. Just about a week
later, in a November 08, 2005,
article posted at Aruba.com, Jansen claimed Aruba's
reputation "remains intact," and claimed increased US visitors and higher hotel
occupancy forecasts over the next year.
The Belize
Tourism Board has
reported a drop in Aruba tourism from 2000 until 2003, with
an increase in 2004 for both air and cruise ship visitors of about 80,000, a
significant increase after years of steady drops. While trying to obtain more
information about current hotel occupancy rates, Boycott Watch discovered
something strange: while Aruba hotels have previously reported their occupancy
rates, no such information was available for any Aruba hotels over the last
year, thus raising questions as to what the actual occupancy rates are.
Is Aruba trying to hide something? Apparently yes. In
2006, Aruba backtracked from reports of double-digit tourism increases. In an
article at Aruba.com dated March 31, 2006, Aruba reported a
modest 0.6% overall 2005 tourism increase, which is a far cry from the steady
9-10% numbers stated earlier in the year. If all the reports are true, then
Aruba must have had a sudden tourism crash in the peak winter tourist season,
but that does not make sense if we are to believe the 9% and 10% numbers Aruba
originally reported. If that really did happen, Aruba would have had a massive
sudden drop in tourism, leaving hotels at 50% or less occupancy during the peak
tourism season, which would have made headline news in the travel industry, but
that did not happen.
Why the sudden reporting
reversal? Even after no longer publishing hotel occupancy rates in 2005, the
truth of the state of the Aruba economy was soon to come out from a source that
official Aruba public relations spokespeople could not silence. Despite the
fact that Aruba backtracked its reporting, it turns out that Aruba still kept
the spin up, reporting an overall increase in travel business, but the Aruba
government was not ready for the report that was to come next.
A May 15, 2006
press
release by Aruba's main bank, the Centrale Bank Van Aruba , states "The
Centrale Bank van Aruba (the Bank) mentions in its Bulletin of the fourth
quarter of 2005 that available information indicate a reduction in business
activities in the fourth quarter of 2005, mainly brought about by a dwindling
performance in the tourism sector. According to the Business Perception Survey
conducted by the Bank businesses reported being less optimistic about the
current state of the economy, and even pessimistic about the short-term
economic outlook. The tourism sector showed a negative outcome. The number of
stay-over visitors and their nights spent on the island fell by 8 percent and 6
percent, respectively. This resulted in a 2 percent decline in gross tourism
receipts, while the hotel occupancy rate recorded a 2.2 percentage points
decline to 77.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005."
While Aruba stated a less than stellar 4th quarter,
the overall economic data reported by the bank does not match the overall
tourism numbers.
A 2.2% occupancy rate decline may
not sound like much, but if that was only in the fourth quarter, it could not
possibly be from a single quarter when the same report states "the net
international reserves of the monetary sector decreased … and were …
9 percent lower than a year earlier." In other words, a 2.2% decline from a 10%
gain would still mean a 7.8% overall increase, yet the bank reported an overall
economic slowdown. In fact, the bank reported that 2005 was a bad overall
tourism year in Aruba. Since Aruba's economy is almost totally based on
tourism, Aruba is clearly in a recession that has nothing to do with the
economic growth in the rest of the free market world.
Aruba is obviously concerned with its image and
Aruba's bank is primarily concerned how their businesses are doing and making
money. Additionally, banks are notorious for reporting their financial status
accurately. So, which would you trust more at face value - the tourism PR
people or the central bank report?
While Aruba has
had an increase in tourism for several years, there is a definite decline in
tourism since the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. While there is no
information as to which countries people are not going to Aruba from, and with
the US being the islands main tourist source that now has a consumer boycott
against Aruba, one can easily conclude the drop in tourism is from the US. Even
with Aruba's campaigns to increase tourism from other countries, Aruba has
still not compensated for the loss of US tourist dollars. Thus, the Aruba
boycott is working.
Art Nittskoff, the chief travel
agent for Gamble
America who specializes in vacation travel reported that although he has
never sold many Aruba vacations because there are no direct flights from
Cleveland to Aruba, people he spoke to in the travel industry said they saw no
perceivable change in Aruba travel over the past year. This would be consistent
with both Aruba not having a 10% increase in tourism, as well as a 2.2% decline
in travel to Aruba as such numbers are small on a per-travel-agency level, but
would be very noticeable on the overall travel tourism dollars in Aruba, which
relies on those dollars as the cornerstone of its economy.
On the justice front, Aruba as a nation has just been
caught in a lie. While Aruba has been reporting record tourism, they
backtracked poorly when backed against a wall. Boycott Watch asks the question:
If Aruba covered-up actual tourism numbers and claimed record tourism to the
court of public opinion, did they also cover-up anything in their statements in
the Natalee Holloway disappearance?
Fred Taub is a
boycott consultant and the President of Boycott Watch which monitors and reports
about consumer boycotts, and Divestment Watch which exposed the
illegal nature of the divest-from-Israel campaign as well as why divestment is
bad for the US and is anti-peace. |
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