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A32 LOCAL
Wednesday 15 april 2020

Opinion Your favorite hotel staff

When will Aruba’s tourism industry recover?

By James Hepple, BA, PhD, Assistant Pro-
fessor, FHTMS, University of Aruba
ORANJESTAD — In the todays and tomor-
row’s editions of Aruba Today we will pub-
lish an opinion article by James Hepple,
today we share Part III, tomorrow part IV
which is the last in the series. Part I and II
were published Thursday April 9, and Tues-
day April 13 and are to be read on our
website.

The situation in Aruba
The Government of Aruba is also pursuing
a policy of “flattening the curve”, that is
slowing the rate of infections to allow its level of tourist plant inventory, the hotels,
health care system to continue to func- resorts, casinos, restaurants, attractions
tion. To do this it has pursued aggressive etc, could well be substantially reduced
social distancing policies which could re- by the second half of the year. A number
main in place until the end of April. Aruba of resorts could close and not re-open. A
is probably two/three weeks behind the number of hotels may close parts of their
USA which in turn is behind Italy and Spain property and consolidate business into
so it is likely the rate of infections in Aruba other parts of the complex. Casinos and
will not peak until early/mid-May. restaurants may close permanently. Tour
Should those policies succeed then the companies may go out of business. All of
rate of local transmission should be sub- this will result in lower aggregate spending
stantially reduced although clearly there than in 2019.
would still continue to be infections.
But the Government of Aruba faces a At the same time, Aruba’s attractiveness is
huge challenge. heavily dependent upon its beach experi-
ence. It may be that a relatively high level
The economy of Aruba is almost complete- of infections will result in a public health
ly dependent upon welcoming visitors policy that demands that social distanc-
from abroad. Aruba needs visitor spend- ing be rigorously enforced on Aruba’s
ing to generate income and provide em- beaches. This could make our product sig-
ployment. So, there will be enormous pres- nificantly less attractive to visitors.
sure to re-open its borders to visitors. It has been estimated that unemployment
However, once Aruba opens its borders in Aruba could reach 50% of the workforce
it is inevitable that infected persons from with many persons out of work and who
overseas will enter the country and could will be without their normal income for
infect members of the local population many weeks, if not months. A major con-
who will in turn infect other residents. It is cern has to be that crime begins to rise
worth noting that New York State gener- substantially as persons attempt to obtain
ates 20% of all visitors from the USA and income to support themselves and their
will, in all likelihood, have the highest level families. It will be important in the long run
of infections of any state in the USA. that Aruba protects its image as a safe
If the Government chooses to open its destination and that rigorous law enforce-
borders, as it must if it is to revive its econ- ment practices are put in place to prevent
omy, then it is going to have to accept any largescale upswing in crime.
that infections will continue to occur as
will deaths resulting from severe cases of Aruba, like many other destinations, will
infection. have to spend considerable sums of mon-
ey on marketing to bring back business. At
The Government will then have to decide the same time, it may well have to invest
what is an acceptable level of mortality large sums of money to guarantee airlift
for its population. at a time of reduced demand. Whether
It is suggested that accepting visitors can those funds will be available in sufficient
only be mitigated by stringent testing at quantity is debatable.
the airport and cruise port using proce- Finally, it is possible that many of our best
dures such as are currently in place in and brightest may emigrate from Aruba to “The following photos are from our favorite people at Costa
South Korea as this will prevent further in- the Netherlands or elsewhere in search of Linda resort. Maria is our housekeeper on the 5th floor in
December when we are there. She is pictured with my
fections coming in from the outside. Such work, leaving us with diminished skill levels husband Chuck. Edwin who manages the bar walked me
testing would have to remain in place for in our work force. down the aisle when Chuck and I renewed our wedding
at least 18 months that is until an effective vows this past December. And Rossy Deveaux who has
vaccine is developed and distributed. Past Experience been our favorite beach beautiful girl who is just amazing!
What impact that will have on the desir- Previous incidents such as 9/11, SARS, the We love all the Costa Linda staff so much. Hope to see you
ability of Aruba as a tourist destination is Holloway Incident, and the financial cri- all in December. Stay safe. Stay healthy. We are Aruba
strong.”
hard to say but it is likely that many other sis of 2008/2009 all suggest that it will take
Caribbean countries will employ similar two/three years for the volume of arrivals Love, Nancy Fletch
tactics to address this conundrum. to get back to previous levels, in this case United States of America
At the same time, it is worth noting that the to the levels achieved in 2019.q