Page 5 - AHATA

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local Thursday 9 March 2023
Festival “A Song for Aruba’s hymn and Flag” begins this Friday

(Oranjestad)—Festival “A Song for Aruba’s On Friday, the bands will be joined by 16 partici-
Hymn and Flag” (Un canto pa Aruba su Himno y pants in the ‘kids’ category performing different
Bandera) will take place this Friday, March 10th genres, like the Aruban Waltz, Danza, Tumba,
and Saturday, March 11th with the categories Polka, Calypso and Mazurka.
‘kids’ and ‘teen’. The adult category will take
place on March 12th. For March 11th, the arrangement for the bands
is as follows:
This will be the 26th edition of the festival, which 1. Melodia
will take place on the Betico Croes Plaza in the 2. Grupo di Amigo
down town area starting from 6pm. The festival 3. Alma Folklorico
will have 13 musical groups and 23 singers. The 4. Rincon Boyz
adult category is the community’s favorite. 5. Aiwalos
6. Grupo Rejoice
The bands performing on Friday the 10th will be: 7. Tipico Colegio Arubano
1. Beyond 8. Carlito y su gang
2. Grupo di Amigo 9. Shine Music
3. Grupo Rejoice 10. Beyond
4. Sabor Crioyo 11. Sabor Crioyo.
5. Melodia
6. Curason pa Aruba On this day, there will be presentations from
7. Alma Folklorico participants in the ‘teen’ category, all ranging
8. Shine Music. from ages 10 to 12q

The Aruban delegation assists in the world’s biggest flight fair, ITB Berlin

(Oranjestad)—This week, grow in the English market
different members from the with 25.56% in 2023 com-
A.T.A. team of Aruba and pared to 2019.
Europe, as well as AAA, Ving with non-stop flights
AHATA and other associ- from Sweden and focus
ates in the tourist industry, continues on Switzerland
are present in Berlin to as- Ving will be operating a
sist at the flight fair ITB Berlin non-stop flight from Swe-
in person for the first time in den to Aruba starting this
3 years. October till March of 2024.
This flight will also divert into
ITB brings professionals from the Norwegian market,
the flight world together which will create more op-
and has the goal to give portunities for further diver-
associates in the industry sification. It must be noted
the opportunity to meet that necessary investiga-
and strengthen their rela- tions regarding the strategy
tionships, while at the same for the Swiss market have
time opening doors for new been finalized. This mar-
associates. ket is a part of the A.T.A.
In the course of the week, to investigate and possibly
the team at A.T.A. will meet widen in 2023/2024, includ-
with different airlines like ing due flights. This will be
Ving, Aplitour and KLM. focused on during ITB.
They will also meet with ho- The European market
tel representatives and tour closed 2022 with a recovery
operators in Europe, and rate of 95% compared to
with associates of AHATA in 2019, and the goal is to fur-
reference to the European ther grow this year. In Janu-
market and the publicist of ary, 98,942 stay-over visitors
A.T.A. in Europe, DEPT. arrived on Aruba. Amongst
The booth of Aruba will them, 6,562 visitors were
have representatives from European. The 3 markets
8 different hotels, tour oper- that delivered the most visi-
ators and other local com- tors from Europe were The
panies. This is a good indi- Netherlands, Sweden and
cation that there is a mar- Germany. The biggest air-
ket for this. 2023 includes line from Europe was KLM,
challenges for this market, which had 3.0% of the total
as well as opportunities. visitors in January 2023.

British Airways A.T.A., AAA, AHATA and as-
A key opportunity is the in- sociates in the industry will
troduction of direct flight continue to work together
with British Airways starting to achieve recovery and
March 26th. The goal is to growth in each market.q