Aruba promotes itself to expand the Latin American market that visits the island

In this context, Travel2latam spoke with Jordan Schlipken Croes, Area Director of the Aruba Tourism Authority.

With what objectives do you come to a fair like the Anato Tourist Showcase?

For us, the Anato Tourist Showcase is the first fair of the year from the Latin American office. We are starting new campaigns, and we often use this event as a communication platform. Yesterday we launched the new Aruba campaign, which is called “The Aruba effect”, so we used it for communication, and to have contact with the Colombian and Latin market in general. We must not forget that 40% of the Latin market share is Colombians, so it is an important number. 

What percentage of Latinos visit the island?

In 2023, 130 thousand Latinos visited Aruba, and if we look at previous years, the highest was 2018 with 113 thousand. We are quite above, and if we talk in percentages from 2019 to 2023 it is a growth of 22%.

And outside of Latin America, what is the ranking of issuing countries like for you?

In general, 80% come from North America, 10.5% from Latin America and the rest from Europe.

At this fair they have been accompanied by businessmen. How has the organization and those who support you been?

It is the first time that we are together with 32 partners. Last year, for example, we had 18, so we almost doubled and we are very pleased with that. Latin America is growing more and more, and precisely the vision of Aruba as a whole is to grow more in Latin America, because the strategy is diversification. We are not wanting to grow much more in the North American market, because we want to have a level, a balance, between North America, Latin America and Europe.

What is the connectivity that you have today to offer to the Latin American market? 

We have good frequency. If we spoke a year ago, we had more or less 190 thousand seats for Latin America. By 2024 we have 295 thousand seats, which means that there is a lot of interest, a lot of demand and a great supply in Aruba to receive all those tourists. Before, they flew from Bogotá and Panama, Bogotá with Avianca and 11 weekly frequencies, and Panama served by Copa with 10 weekly frequencies. Added to this is Medellín, which will start on June 2, which is a great novelty and will not only support the Colombian market, but will also connect with Peru, Chile and probably Argentina. In addition, on December 2 we started a new Lima-Aruba connection with Latam Airlines and with super good rates.

How is the news of each of the niches for Aruba? 

We seek to focus on people who visit the destination for the first time, we call them “first time”, that is our main target. The group that visits us the most is family, followed by couples and friends. Groups are also something we are working very hard on. In 2023 we work for the Mice segment in Colombia and Brazil, and taking into account that Latam Airlines has now also entered from Lima, we will add Peru and Chile in 2024. There are 15 groups in total that we receive in 2023. 

What infrastructure does the destination have to hold an event? 

Aruba is prepared in every way to hold an event, but its vision is not to make visits by groups of a thousand people. We are looking for a small crowd because we want them to really enjoy themselves, so we don't have that infrastructure to be talking about thousands of people, but we do have a very good experience in receiving pharmaceutical or sports groups. We are experts in this and we are even one of the only destinations in the world that gives cash incentives to groups that visit us. That depends on the number of nights, and it can be up to 6 thousand dollars that we give for you to use at your discretion in Aruba. I give an example, if you want to have a sunset on the beach with champagne for your group and you want to use those 6 thousand, you can use it. We leave it at the discretion of our visitors and it is given completely with the support of the Aruba Tourism Authority.

What is the current situation in the cruise segment?

Aruba received 1.2 million air visitors in 2023, in addition we received 850 thousand visitors on cruise ships and it is a very important number because more and more cruises are arriving. In addition, we have infrastructure capable of receiving the largest cruise ship in the world.

Do you expect to continue expanding that number of shipping companies? 

We are doing quite well, we are surely going to grow, but we will also be looking for ships like the famous Cruise Norwegian. There are some cruises that have a very top level and we want to call them. 

How does the destination work to have a balance and be friendly to the environment?

As a destination we have been doing this for many years. We have windmills that have been installed in Aruba for about 10 to 12 years, providing a percentage of more or less 22% of electricity to the island. 8 years ago the single-use plastic law was put into practice, and that type of plastic does not exist in Aruba. The environment is important and the island lives off of tourism, so we have to take maximum care of it because that is what we depend on. There is an added sense of commitment, along with working with the local community. The tourist becomes involved in the culture of Aruba and the Aruban lives for the tourist. 90% of Aruba works directly in tourism, and the other percentage is indirect but works the same, so everything is involved, I think we stand out for that.