arubabeaches.net

Browsing around the internet I always come across some wicked deals to Aruba. Check it out.

• Delta Vacations has a weekend round trip special from New York’s JFK to Aruba all-in from $645 per person from Saturday, November 24 to Tuesday, November 27.
• US Airways Vacations still runs its 3-day specials starting from $627 per person from many cities in the US to Aruba.
• Continental Airlines Vacations currently has The Westin Aruba Resort on sale with specials like: honeymooners special, kids eat for free, 6th night free, 35% off room rates or 10% off orginal contracted rates.

Aruba might be expensive for some, I suggest you don’t make it more expensive than necessary. Take advantage of the deals. By the way above recommendations are clean and I earn no commissions on them.

Aruba tourism seems to be headed into a new era, and fast, with all recent developments. As soon as new players appear onto the local tourism scene they forcefully announce big plans. No company can afford to stay behind.

Take Startwood Hotels & Resorts for example. The minute it announced its arrival in Aruba the public relations department send out a statement with the plans for the property at Palm Beach. Currently The Westin Aruba-tower is receiving a redo of millions of dollars and south of that a high-end timeshare resort is going to rise soon: The Westin Aruba Ocean Villas. [UPDATE: Link is broken; Westin stopped project]

Perhaps you don’t grasp the complexity and cost of property transfers in regards to major resorts at prime locations. Fact is that hundreds of millions of dollars locally and internationally exchange bank accounts, legal documents and companies are created, several notary offices handle the transfers and the island’s officials grant the necessary permits. For this reason as soon as the new buyer receives the go ahead they don’t lose any time.

Currently Marriott’s Vacation Club (Marriott’s Ocean Club and Marriott’s Surf Club) has the largest market share in the high-end timeshare market in Aruba. In fact Marriott’s properties are currently considered to be the only high-end timeshare resorts. Its position is being threatened however by smaller timeshare resorts (i.e. The Aruban Resort and Divi Phoenix) that are investing millions in upgrades and, more specifically, by Startwood Hotels & Resorts.

Despite the fact that construction for this timeshare resort hasn’t even begun, the presentation on Starwood’s website suggest otherwise, in fact there is even a link where you can book this resort.

A continue browse around the website offers more information. Units start from $44,000 for a studio and go as high as $196,900 for a three bedroom. According to the artist rendering the rooms feature the contemporary modern look of straight lines and squared furniture throughout the resort.

As of today no construction has started yet. The terrain has been made ready for construction so this is going to happen any day now.

Impression of new to be build timeshare resort by Westin [image by Starwood]

Interior of new Westin timeshare [image by Starwood]

Recently I visited Eagle Beach and took about two hundred pictures in the hopes that a couple would come out decent. Actually many came out very good, considering I only use a 6.1 mega pixel point-and-shoot camera.

Structures in the surrounding area of this beach are: La Cabana Resort, Paradise Beach Villas, Marine Verlofcentrum, Chalet Suisse Restaurant, Oceania Residences, Screaming Eagle Restaurant, La Quinta Resort, Le Dome Restaurant and Costa Linda Resort.

Sun is setting on wide and calm Eagle Beach.

Tourism officials reported earlier this week that Aruba’s tourism is on the rise and could set some record numbers by the end of the year.

Quick recap of the report:

• 2.6% more visitors year-to-date in comparison to 2006
• This represents 28,000 more people in 2007
• + 4.2% from USA
• + 14.8% from Venezuela
• + 17.2% from Colombia
• + 23.8% from Brazil
• + 29% from Britain
• + 841.6% from Spain
• - 0.3% from Netherlands

United States still represents almost three quarters of the visitors amount in Aruba consequently the 4.2% rise is the most significant growth for the island’s general economic state.

Another significant growth is Venezuela. This country represents about one tenth of the total visitors amount and puts them behind United States. Venezuela is expected to take some market share away from United States in 2008 due to the socio-economic situation at our southern neighbor. There are restrictions for Venezuelans to freely exchange money and obtain certain (luxury) products. The local retail sector is expected to benefit from this spike in numbers from Venezuela.

The British market grew due to the fact that tour operator First Choice added additional flights from Manchester. Spanish tour operator Pullmann Tours started a combination package, 1 week Caribbean cruise, 1 week Aruba.

Apparently the focus on niche markets is paying off. The last few years tourism officials are promoting Aruba as a conference island which in turn has brought many conferences and investments from countries like USA, Chile and Venezuela.

Together with the $40 million construction Marriott International launched a complete website with the plans and progress of the remodeling activities. There is also the possibility to contact the construction concierge with questions. Marriott added a handy FAQ section where it addresses many burning questions.

The presentation of the website is pretty good. Seemingly they cover all aspects of the construction and are very forthcoming with information about the reconstruction progress and any possible inconvenience to the visitors. Apparently in the fear of loosing sales many other resorts that are currently reconstructing are very tight-lipped. It seems that Marriott has so much confidence in its capability to maintain the inconvenience level down that they offer very few special offers or any kind of compensation related to the construction.

Locally Aruba Marriott Resort is considered to be a pretty good “citizen”. Marriott hires lots of local talent in key positions and there are no reported issues with tax transfers to the tax collectors office. Additionally Marriott co-organizes or co-sponsors social events such as beach clean-ups.

For more information visit Marriott International’s website at arubaplayground.com.

Remodeled room at Aruba Marriott Resort [Image from arubaplayground.com]

There has been several posts about constructions of condominiums in Aruba on this site. Oceania Condominium Residences received some positive reviews thus far.

All uploaded pictures were shot from a relatively close angle. The following picture is shot from across the street on Eagle Beach. Although the picture isn’t very clear you can see the whole project with two large cranes working on phases 3,4 and 5. All the way to the right are phases 1 and 2 which are already finished.

Construction Oceania Residences shot from Eagle Beach