Page 31 - bon-dia-aruba-20200409

locAl Thursday 9 april 2020
A31

Opinion

When will Aruba’s tourism industry recover?

By James Hepple, BA, PhD, Assis- • As of Wednesday April 1st, Aru- mand from the USA and from the
tant Professor, FHTMS, University of ba has reported it had 55 posi- north-east USA.
Aruba tive cases of COVID 19, which It might be possible to diversify our
is 487 cases per one million per- source markets, but this will take
ORANJESTAD — In the following sons. The USA reported 207,637 aggressive marketing and having
editions of Aruba Today we will positive cases on the same enough airlift in place and could
publish an opinion article by James date, which is 628 cases per take a considerable amount of
Hepple, today we share Part I. one million persons. In both in- time.
As of April 1 2020, Aruba’s tourism stances the number of cases is As of April 1st, what do we know
industry has shut down as the Gov- growing significantly on a daily (and what don’t we know) about
ernment attempts to slow the rate basis. COVID 19 and the situation in the
of infections from the COVID19 vi- USA?
rus. Aruba and its Economy
By way of background: - Aruba has an official population We know: -
• On March 15th regulations of 113,000 persons. Of these, 24.3% • COVID 19 is a novel (new) virus
were put in place regulating are between o and 19 years old, for which there is no effective
the entry of visitors. 61.6% are between 20 and 64 years vaccine.
• On March 21st the Aruban bor- old, and 14.1% are 65 years old or • The virus is mutating which is
der was closed indefinitely to older. not unexpected and is not
incoming visitors and returning The Aruban economy is almost necessarily a bad thing.
residents. On the same date completely dependent upon its • It will take 12 to 18 months to
a curfew from 9 pm until 6 am tourism industry. According to the develop an effective vaccine.
was implemented. World Travel and Tourism Council in It will take a further amount of
• On Sunday March 29th a Shel- 2019 tourism accounted for 98.3% time to produce the vaccine in and in implementing Shelter at
ter in Place order was imple- of Aruba’s GDP of US$ 2,876 billion large quantities and to admin- Home policies.
mented whereby the popu- and generated 47,000 jobs, that is ister doses. • The most effective long-term
lation was confined to their 99% of all employment. WTTC esti- • It is highly contagious. policy is “test and trace”. This
homes. No date was given mated that visitors spent US$1.876 • It can take a number of days requires thorough effective
when this order would be lifted. billion in Aruba in 2019. before infected persons dis- testing of as many people as
All bars, restaurants, nightclubs, In 2019 75% of Aruba’s visitors came play symptoms. possible, isolating those who
casinos, stores, malls, and other from the USA, with 4% coming from • That the USA currently has the have been infected and trac-
related facilities were deemed Canada and 4% from the Nether- largest number of positive cas- ing those with whom they have
non-essential and were closed. lands, with the balance coming es in the world. As of April 1, it been in contact. This also re-
• The airline industry responded from the rest of the world. has reported 207,637 cases, a quires significantly expanding
to these regulations, and to Again in 2019, 52% of Aruba’s visi- rate of 628 per one million per- the health care facilities es-
other similar regulations being tors from the USA came from the sons. pecially hospital facilities and
implemented elsewhere, by al- five states of New York, New Jersey, • That China has probably sig- having enough supplies such
most immediately suspending Massachusetts, Connecticut and nificantly under-reported the as masks and ventilators, to
air service to Aruba. Pennsylvania. New York was by far number of cases and deaths. deal with the rise in the number
• According to the Official Airline the most important state generat- • According to the World Health of patients.
Guide (OAG), between March ing 20% of all visitors from the USA. Organization the global mortal- • That South Korea has probably
16th and March 30th Aruba ity rate of those infected is 3.4% managed the crisis better than
lost 84% of its air seats, falling The recovery of the tourism industry but this varies very much from any other nation.
from 33,338 seats for the week will depend upon two things – re- country to country. In Italy the • In some countries, where lo-
of March 16th to 5,266 seats for covery of demand and the situa- mortality rate is 11%, in Spain cal transmission has been sig-
the week of March 30th, a drop tion in Aruba. 9%. nificantly slowed (China and
of 28,072 seats, with further cuts • The overall global policy re- South Korea), new infections
to come. Demand sponse has been to “flatten are being caused by visitors
• Many airlines have indicated As has been indicated the USA is the curve”, that is to try and from outside resulting in such
they will not be flying to Aruba by far the primary source of visitors slow the increase in the rate countries closing their borders
during the month of April with to Aruba. It could be argued that of infections to prevent health to foreigners.
indications that the suspension visitors from the USA generate 74% care facilities becoming over- • It is highly probable that the vi-
of these flights could well con- of Aruba’s GDP, while visitors from whelmed and thus mitigating rus will become endemic, like
tinue through May. New York State alone generate the number of deaths. flu, and will reappear again
• Many cruise lines suspended 15% of the country’s GDP. • To achieve this many countries and again in the future.
operations on March 13th and So, following the existing business have implemented “social dis-
have stated they do not plan model, the recovery of Aruba’s tancing” policies, that is mini- Part II of this column is to be con-
to recommence their cruises tourism industry will be heavily mizing contact between mem- tinued in Aruba Today’s edition of
again until at least May 11th. dependent upon recovery in de- bers of the resident population Tuesday April 14.q