Tired of tourists who rarely venture outside their resorts, and who leave their wallets locked in the hotel-room safe, Aruba is moving to limit all-inclusive holiday packages.
The Dutch Caribbean island, located 20 miles the north of Venezuela, has become one of the first places in the world to limit all-inclusive deals, which bundle accommodation, food, drinks and entertainment into one price. Regulations that came into effect in August cap all-inclusives at 40 percent of hotel rooms on the island. They currently make up about a third of the country’s 5,500 rooms.
“We are moving away from the trend,” Otmar Oduber, minister of Tourism, Aruba, said in a telephone interview. “It’s very important for us for tourism not to become a negative concept in the life of the people of Aruba.”
This is an excerpt from an article published by Bloomberg. To read the full story, visit Leave the Hotel: Tropical Island’s Plans to Shake Up Tourism.
