Page 2 - aua traveller july 17

Soon having a Visa to enter Aruba
from Colombia will no longer be required
MINISTER Otmar Oduber elaborated on the plans
to eliminate the required Visa to travel from Colombia Panama and many more.
to Aruba. Curacao and Sint Maarten have already
eliminated the Visa requirement for Colombians.
The Aruban government evaluated whether to imple-
ment this plan or not and have decided in favor of it. Colombian residents in Aruba, so it could have a huge
Starting next year Aruba will no longer demand those
traveling from Colombia to Aruba to have a Visa.
“The reason for having the Visa requirements were
similar to those of the rest of the world which is to
protect the country from entrance from a country
decaying, but that was the case 25 years ago. At that
time Colombia had an extremely high
crime rate. However they are cur-
rently one of the safest countries
in Latin America and the world.
They are advancing quickly and
their unemployment volume is
decreasing fast.” According to
Minister Oduber.
The entire world has noticed
Colombia’s’ enormous ad-
vancement and has start-
ed opening the
doors to
2 LOCAL
them again. Some countries that have eliminated the
Visa requirement are Holland, Curacao, Sint Maarten,
“However in Aruba we have a lot of Colombians
residing here, meaning that eliminating the Visa
requirement could receive major impulse from the
effect on Aruba. For this reason we are trying to get
the Visa demand eliminated.” The Minister said.
Minister Oduber thinks that this decision will be
beneficial for our tourism and that an investigation
done by ATA proved that Aruba will get a lot of tour-
ists from Colombia when the Visa requirement is
eliminated because Aruba has invested a lot
in Colombia. The tourists will be affluent
Colombians and family members that
have family living here.
Minister Oduber concluded by saying:
“We didn’t eliminate the Visa require-
ment two months ago when the other
countries did it, but decided to wait till tourists coming from Colombia to Aruba.
next year so as to give the Government
enough time to prepare the control that
will take place and to make sure they
are complying with interna-
tional standards.”
RONELLA TIJN ASJOE-CROES
The Colombian Visa will soon be eliminated and
this will allow tourism from Colombia to grow and
expand according to the CEO of ATA Mrs. Ronella
Tijn Asjoe-Croes.
“ATA was part of the process of deciding whether to
eliminate the Colombian Visa requirement or not. It
wasn’t an easy decision to make, because there were
many factors that had to be taken into account. One
of them being Aruba’s’ initial reason for introducing
the Colombian Visa and should have a good reason
for eliminating it also, another factor is the security
issue.” Ronella Tijn Asjoe-Croes said.
These factors and reasons still need to be evaluated
but the tourist factor is a strong deciding factor con-
sidering that Colombia is a Latin America country that
is developing well economically.
Ronella Croes says that ATA is ready to eliminate
the Visa and hopes that it will double the amount of
“We need to remember family members that visit their
family residing in Aruba, but we will not lose sight of
our main goal which is to attract more affluent tourists
to Aruba and Colombia can offer us that. That’s why
we at ATA think that it is a good decision to eliminate
the Visa.” Ronella Tijn Asjoe-Croes said.
Friday, July 17 2015 - ARUBA TRAVELLER