Page 5 - auatraveller

Customs
Management
elaborates on
the IMPORT of
SECOND hand
cars to Aruba
IN a recent interview Mr. Marcelito Pablo Chief of the Customs
Criminal Investigation Department elaborated on the debates
about cars with right sided steering wheel and other rules that
could possibly stop the import of cars and other products.
“There’s currently no bans on importing second hand cars, there
aren’t even bans on second hand cars with a steering wheel on
the right side, but there was a ban on second hand cars for more
than 22 years only new cars could be imported.” Mr. Marcelito
Pablo said.
According to Mr. Marcelito Pablo the Government should
introduce a ban on second hand cars to protect dealers in Aruba.
Another solution is an economic charge on second hand cars. So
instead of charging 30% or 50% on imported second hand cars a
higher percentage should be charged. “The law regarding second
hand cars is already ready but the decree still needs to be made so markets are growing more and more.
the law can finally be implemented.” Mr. Marcelito said.
Mr. Marcelito continued: “There was a charge of 110% and
120% before. The government could either stop importation of
second hand cars completely or increase the import charge on
them and reduce the import charge on normal and new cars that
are imported.”
Regarding questions whether the import of new cars will decrease
because of what’s happening, Mr Marcelito said: “We’ve noticed
that the import duties on new cars is decreasing more and more
every year. This is due to many factors but one of the main factors Compared to the same period in 2014
is the import of second hand cars, they cause the import duties to
decrease resulting in less new cars being imported.”
All imported cars are brought to the Customs Criminal
Investigation Department after going through the declaration
process, this control often costs more than what is charged.
There are numerous ways to calculate the import duties,
sometimes you can even get a car for free but have to pay for
it when it enters Aruba, sometimes you even have to pay what
the car is worth. When it comes to cars bought abroad Aruba’s
Customs Office deals with the authorities of the country where
the car was bought, they provide the info about where the car
was bought and how much it cost and based on this the Customs
office determines how much import tax someone will be charged.
Marcelito concluded by saying: “Douane (Customs Office) is
willing to advice the Government on how to slow the import of
second hand cars or cars with a right sided steering wheel, but we
only give advice when the government asks for it.”
ARUBA TRAVELLER - Wednesday, July 22 2015
Stay Over Tourists
INCREASED with
16.2% in the
FIRST HALF of 2015
THE figures for the first half of 2015
have been calculated. The first 6
months of 2015 show a considerable
increase of 16.2% in the amount of
stay over tourists compared to the
same period in 2014.
Ronella Tijn Asjoe-Croes CEO of Aruba
Tourism Authority mentioned that
what stood out most from these figures
were the two markets with a higher
tourism volume to Aruba, which are
the United States and Venezuela. These
Another point that needs to be
highlighted is that the amount of visitors to Venezuela with the other part of the
from all the continents to Aruba has
increased in 2015. The RevPar has also
increased with 8.6% during the first
half of 2015, whereas the cruise tourist
percentage decreased with 8% this year.
The United States
Aruba received 7.8% more stay over
tourists from the United Stated.
Venezuela
The second largest market is Venezuela
with an increase of 69.8% in the first 6
months of the year. This market can be
divided into three segments.
The first segment is tourists that use
Aruba as a hub to go to the United Stated
or Europe; these tourists usually stay no
more than one night. This segment grew
a lot during the last few years because
of American airlines and other airlines
canceling flights to Venezuela because
of not having access to dollars in this
market.
The second segment is the usual
tourists, which stay around 7 nights
and are affluent and spend a lot on their
vacation. This market is still the largest
one. However this segment is under a
lot of pressure because of the problems
in Venezuela and could change their
spending habits from buying expensive
products to buying basic products.
The third segment travels on a budget
and isn’t affluent, they come to Aruba
to take advantage of the “Cupo Cadivi”
which gives Venezuelan tourists a
certain amount of money when they
travel to Aruba. These tourists come to
Aruba use part of the money and return
money to do business with, because of
the lack of dollars in Venezuela.
Cruise Tourists
After increasing the Cruise Passenger Fee
for every cruise passenger from $3.50
to $8.00 in 2014 which is extremely
important for a sustainable development
of this industry for Aruba the percentage
of Cruise Tourists has will probably be
decreased by 8% by the end of the year.
However calculations for 2016 show
that cruise tourism will increase by 16%
compared to 2015. This will exceed the
2013 record.
RevPar
To get an idea of the quality of tourists
that Aruba attracts the Average Daily
Rate (ADR) is used. This rate indicates
how much a tourist pays for a room.
According to AHATA the ADR increased
with 9.9% in the first half of 2015
compared to the same period in 2014.
The room occupancy has decreased
with 0.9% during the first half of 2015.
However the profit per room, also called
the REVPAR increased with 8.6% in the
first half of 2015.
5LOCAL