For two evenings, Saturday & Sunday, downtown Oranjestad became a lively meeting place for food lovers, music enthusiasts and people eager to experience Aruba’s culinary creativity. Now in its third year, the Autentico Food Festival, especially the Pavilion, is becoming an important opportunity for local restaurants, bars, chefs, and culinary students to showcase their talents.

Visitors could stroll from booth to booth, 35 food vendors, 16 bars, sampling specially selected dishes at reasonable prices, while bars presented signature cocktails. Behind the festive atmosphere, however, there was also a more serious story: a festival learning from experience and improving its organization.

Full disclosure: I went to a popular supermarket on September 2nd at 8am and bought six tickets. Then spent a month listening to my friends who did not get tickets — how much they regret not waking up early. Organizer still advertised ticket sale on the radio, while tickets were sold out.

The event I hear, sold out within two hours, about 4,000 tickets. I did not attend any bucket list events or any culinary experiences or any mixology events. If you did, you can share your feedback in the comments.

But I did ask around for commentary and the feedback from participants was largely positive. Autentico is a unique event for Aruba, they said, with a beautiful setup, very stylish guests, and an organization that several participants described as excellent. Some felt the flow of visitors was better than last year. Food queues were shorter, and topping up festival wristbands was considerably easier. Several vendors were also better prepared, using sales information from the earlier edition to make more informed decisions about quantities and menu choices.

One participant reported that Saturday generated approximately 20% more revenue than Sunday, a pattern also observed the previous year. Although some felt the festival appeared less crowded, their sales remained comparable or even improved. Perhaps visitors arrived at various times, creating a more even flow rather than overwhelming the event all at once.

There were plenty of culinary highlights. Terra by Jeremy Ford’s beef short rib with lentils won one visitor’s vote for favorite bite. EPB students, under chef Orlin Geerman’s guidance, impressed with their tamarind pork belly with Caribbean coleslaw stuffed in a Johnny cake, alongside an elaborate aloe sorbet dessert. The crew was tired but proud of what students accomplished. Casa Nonna’s Lobster Ravioli, La Florentina’s Italian Meat Balls, Petite Plaisir’s drunken cake, Azar’s open face taco, ice cold Balashi beer, Burico by Pepe Margo– there is only so much one person can eat and drink

Even the smallest discoveries made an impression. One visitor was so tempted by the aroma of butterscotch-infused coffee beans from Aruba Coffee Roasting Company that a single sniff resulted in two bags going home.

The festival also offered cooking and mixology classes, adding an educational dimension to the culinary celebration. Meanwhile, organizers appeared to pay greater attention to logistics, including the placement and management of musical performances. Food safety inspections were reportedly more thorough this year, a development one participant welcomed as a sign of more consistent oversight.

One critical point raised by participants concerned the balance between Aruba’s smaller restaurants and the major hotel groups. The larger establishments often have more staff, equipment, and financial resources to invest in their booths. Autentico should continue to provide opportunities for smaller independent restaurants to shine, ensuring that the festival celebrates the full diversity of Aruba’s culinary scene rather than allowing the biggest players to dominate.

The distribution of premium locations also deserves attention. Rather than concentrating the most sought-after restaurants in one courtyard, organizers could spread these prime spots throughout the festival. This would give more participants an opportunity to benefit from high visitor traffic and encourage people to explore different areas.

The entrance at Wilhelminastraat was another area identified for improvement. Adding more vendors at the beginning of the route could create an immediate sense of excitement and draw visitors into the event.

Some sections of the street attracted fewer visitors than others. Uneven lighting may have contributed, suggesting that a more consistent lighting plan and more strategic placement of food booths and entertainment could encourage people to explore the entire festival area.

Opinions about the music were divided. Some visitors loved its diversity, while others found the selections and volume unpleasant. Greater attention to musical programming, including opportunities to showcase Aruba’s own DJs, could help create an atmosphere that appeals to more people.

Another suggestion worth considering is the festival calendar. Could Thursday replace Sunday as one of the festival evenings? Thursday is traditionally a popular night for going out in Aruba, and a change could attract a different audience.

There is also an opportunity to rethink the schedule to accommodate more visitors. If the festival were to introduce a ‘second seating’ or arrival period later in the evening, it might encourage people to come after the initial rush. A clearly communicated closing time, perhaps around 9 p.m. for one session, could help organizers manage the flow and explore whether a later group of visitors would be interested in joining afterward.

Perhaps one of the most valuable suggestions is to open Autentico more deliberately to the local public. Many residents cannot regularly afford to dine at Aruba’s iconic restaurants, yet they may be curious about the food and experiences these establishments offer. The street festival provides an accessible opportunity to discover their menus, meet the people behind the restaurants and develop a greater appreciation for Aruba’s culinary offerings.

This could make Autentico more than a food festival for visitors and established restaurant patrons. It could become a platform for culinary education, local pride, and discovery, encouraging residents to explore the island’s dining scene at their own pace and within their means.

Organizers could also examine how different menu choices perform, including the sales of vegan dishes alongside meat options. Such information would help vendors plan more effectively and provide useful insights for future editions.

Perhaps the most telling comment came from someone who wished Autentico could become a monthly event. For a few evenings, Oranjestad became a place where people wanted to linger, socialize, eat, and enjoy their capital rather than simply pass through.

That may be Autentico’s greatest promise. The festival is already creating memorable experiences and giving local talent a platform. With each edition, there is an opportunity to gain experience, refine and build on that success. The challenge now is to preserve what makes Autentico special while ensuring that its benefits reach more restaurants, more residents, and more corners of downtown Oranjestad.

Special mention: Egmar Irausquin, Elite Production, Gilbert Wernet, your traditional cunucu house was most charming, you are exceptionally talented people.

One last question, who is the target audience, locals? Then Sunday is not a good day. Visitors? Then the weekend is inconvenient, they just arrived, perhaps Wednesday & Thursday would be better.

SUSTAINABILITY CANNOT BE SELECTIVE

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/sustainability-cannot-be-selective/

Bucuti & Tara Joins Fundacion ABO to Make Aruba Pink and Share “The Gift of Rest”

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/bucuti-tara-joins-fundacion-abo-to-make-aruba-pink-and-share-the-gift-of-rest/

Complexity hides the key message

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/complexity-hides-the-key-message/

Across the Pond 2026 edition

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/across-the-pond-2026-edition/

Another hip, hip, hurray for Café the Plaza, celebrating its 35th anniversary

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/another-hip-hip-hurray-for-cafe-the-plaza-celebrating-its-35th-anniversary/

Following the sentence in the case of the Government of Aruba and Tierra del Sol, already in possession of a building permit and an excavation/construction permit for its grandfathered development, a hotel in the Hudishibana area.

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/following-the-sentence-in-the-case-of-the-government-of-aruba-and-tierra-del-sol-already-in-possession-of-a-building-permit-and-an-excavation-construction-permit-for-its-grandfathered-development-a/

Do not let a good fish get away

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/do-not-let-a-good-fish-get-away/

Minimum Wages increase as of January 1st, 2026

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/minimum-wages-increase-as-of-january-1st-2026/

Article written on the 7th of Oct. based on Minister of Tourism Comments and AHATA´s comments.

Written by Randall Laclé M.A. Destination Tourism Management, B.Sc. Hospitality and Tourism Management, B.Sc. Hotel Management

Recent comments by Aruba’s Minister of Tourism have raised an important question. If no single stakeholder should determine Aruba’s tourism future, what process should determine it instead?

Minister Wendrick Cicilia: “Un stakeholder no por determina rumbo di e turismo di Aruba” | 24ora – Prome Den Noticia

The question comes at a pivotal moment. National dialogue sessions, the Aruba Tourism Authority’s shift toward a higher-value visitor economy, AHATA’s call for stronger growth management, and public concerns about housing, infrastructure, environmental pressures, and quality of life all point to the same reality: Aruba can no longer measure tourism success simply by counting arrivals.

The debate is no longer whether tourism matters to Aruba. It is how tourism should be governed, who should help shape its future, and how competing interests should be balanced when difficult decisions must be made.

Beneath discussions about visitor numbers, taxes, cruise ships, accommodation growth, and sustainability lies a deeper question:

Who is shaping the rules of Aruba’s future tourism model?

A destination can adopt the right language: sustainability, regeneration, value over volume, quality of life, resilience, and stewardship. But even the best strategy can reproduce the same top-down decision-making if the people who live with the consequences are consulted only after the direction has already been chosen.

This is why Aruba needs more than stakeholder dialogue.

It needs a tourism stewardship model.

The Debate Is Bigger Than Government and Industry

The national dialogue sessions brought together important institutions: the Ministry, Aruba Tourism Authority, Aruba Ports Authority, Aruba Hotel and Tourism Association, Aruba Timeshare Association, public-sector entities, educators, environmental advocates, and local businesses.

That represents meaningful progress. It acknowledges that tourism is not managed by a single ministry or industry association.

At the same time, the debate contains more common ground than public disagreements sometimes suggest.

Both government and industry increasingly recognize that Aruba’s future competitiveness cannot depend on unlimited growth in visitor numbers. The discussion has shifted toward value creation, destination quality, resident well-being, environmental protection, and long-term competitiveness.

The disagreement is no longer about whether Aruba should pursue quality.

The disagreement is about what policies are needed to achieve it and whether Aruba is willing to establish and enforce the limits necessary to make that promise credible.

Because in tourism, strategy is not defined by vision statements.

It is defined by decisions.

What the Community Is Actually Saying

One of the biggest mistakes policymakers can make is assuming that public frustration means opposition to tourism itself.

Public submissions, stakeholder statements, media discussions, and community forums suggest something different. Many residents are not rejecting tourism. They are questioning whether it is being managed in a way that protects Aruba’s long-term interests.

These informal discussions should not be treated as a representative public-opinion survey. They do, though, point to several recurring concerns that deserve serious attention.

Many residents believe accommodation growth should be addressed before arrival growth. Calls to limit hotel expansion, regulate short-term rentals, strengthen enforcement, and establish accommodation ceilings reflect concern that tourism-related development is affecting housing affordability and land availability. Those concerns should be tested through transparent data on rents, home prices, hotel-room growth, short-term rentals, land use, and household income.

The larger policy point is clear: arrival management cannot be separated from accommodation management.

Others argue that cruise-tourism pressures should be addressed before introducing additional taxes and visitor fees. Their concern is not necessarily cruise tourism itself, but the concentration of large numbers of visitors in limited spaces at the same time. This points toward practical measures such as cruise-scheduling adjustments, site-specific visitor-flow management, and daily limits where particular locations or infrastructure systems become overloaded.

Questions about accountability and transparency also appear repeatedly. Residents ask where existing tourism revenues are being spent, whether taxes are being fully collected, and whether promised infrastructure improvements are being delivered. Public support for additional tourism charges will inevitably depend on confidence that current revenues are being managed effectively.

There is also broad interest in attracting higher-value visitors. Yet many residents reject the idea that value should be defined solely by spending power.

A visitor who spends more is not automatically a higher-value visitor if that person places disproportionate pressure on housing, public spaces, infrastructure, or ecosystems.

Value can also involve responsible behavior, a longer stay, respect for local culture and nature, meaningful local spending, and a lower overall impact.

A stewardship approach should therefore distinguish between visitor value and visitor wealth.

Another recurring concern is implementation. Community members often express frustration with studies, committees, reports, and strategies that fail to produce visible action. The public appears less interested in additional plans than in clear responsibilities, measurable deadlines, transparent reporting, and demonstrated enforcement.

Perhaps most importantly, residents define tourism impacts more broadly than traditional tourism metrics. Housing affordability, public access to beaches, traffic congestion, neighbourhood character, environmental quality, cultural identity, and animal welfare all influence how people evaluate tourism success.

Taken together, these concerns do not represent opposition to tourism.

They represent a demand for credibility, accountability, and stewardship.

In many ways, the community is already describing the foundations of a tourism stewardship model.

Consultation Is Not Yet Stewardship

Consultation asks people for their opinion.

Stewardship gives people an ongoing role in protecting what they share.

The difference matters because tourism is not simply an economic sector in Aruba. It influences neighbourhoods, housing affordability, public infrastructure, beach access, traffic volumes, employment opportunities, cultural assets, environmental systems, and the overall quality of everyday life.

Tourism stewardship is ultimately not only about managing visitors.

It is about managing the shared territory in which residents live, businesses operate, and visitors temporarily participate.

The question is not simply how many tourists Aruba can attract.

The question is whether tourism operates within the environmental, social, and infrastructure conditions that allow the island to thrive.

Viewed through this lens, stewardship becomes a form of territorial governance rather than a tourism-management exercise alone.

In a stewardship model, government retains its authority and responsibility to make decisions. Residents, workers, businesses, environmental organisations, community groups, and researchers are not treated merely as audiences for a completed plan.

Instead, they become partners in defining:

This is not an argument for giving every stakeholder a veto.

It is an argument for making evidence, accountability, and decision-making visible.

Elinor Ostrom’s work on governing shared resources showed that durable rules depend not on participation alone, but on clear responsibilities, credible monitoring, accessible conflict resolution, and the ability to adapt arrangements as conditions change.

Aruba’s beaches, reefs, communities, infrastructure, public spaces, and social trust are shared assets.

Managing them requires shared responsibility.

Who Still Needs a Meaningful Place at the Table

A stakeholder list is not necessarily the same thing as representation.

In the next phase of tourism governance, Aruba should deliberately create space for groups that are often represented indirectly or not represented at all.

This includes residents from tourism-affected neighbourhoods such as Palm Beach, Noord, Oranjestad, San Nicolas, and surrounding communities. It includes renters, first-time homebuyers, and younger residents affected by housing pressures.

It includes frontline tourism employees, supervisors, and support staff whose daily experiences rarely appear in strategic reports. It includes small business owners, taxi operators, tour guides, artists, retailers, restaurateurs, and independent service providers.

It includes community, cultural, environmental, coastal-conservation, and animal-welfare organizations. It includes educational institutions and young people who will inherit the tourism system being designed today.

It also includes independent researchers, planners, economists, and data specialists capable of evaluating claims and supporting evidence-based decisions.

Industry representation remains essential.

AHATA’s recent position is significant because it recognizes that uncontrolled growth can ultimately damage the tourism product itself. At the same time, stewardship requires accountability from the private sector as well as government.

Hotels, developers, airlines, cruise operators, short-term-rental platforms, tourism investors, and other industry actors all influence the pressures experienced by communities and ecosystems.

A genuine stewardship model therefore cannot focus solely on public-sector decisions. Private-sector actors should contribute data, participate in monitoring, support agreed limits, and demonstrate how their activities create long-term community value in addition to financial returns.

An industry association cannot substitute for meaningful community representation and public legitimacy. Government cannot substitute consultation alone for meaningful ongoing participation and accountability.

Stewardship requires both institutional expertise and lived experience.

A Stewardship Model for Aruba

Aruba does not need another large bureaucracy.

What Aruba needs is a transparent governance structure built around existing institutions, supported by clear responsibilities and visible accountability.

A Tourism Stewardship Compact could accomplish five practical objectives.

The compact should identify the conditions that tourism must not undermine.

These should include:

These conditions should be defined publicly and translated into measurable indicators. A principle is difficult to enforce if nobody can determine whether it has been met.

Aruba should move beyond debating carrying capacity as an abstract concept.

The island should publish measurable limits for crowding, infrastructure pressure, accommodation growth, environmental stress, and other conditions that affect residents and visitors.

When those limits are exceeded, predefined management responses should be triggered. These may include:

The precise response will depend on the indicator and the location. A crowded cruise corridor, an overloaded wastewater system, a stressed reef site, and declining housing affordability will not require the same intervention.

The principle, though, should remain consistent: evidence must lead to action.

Participation should include government, industry, employees, neighborhood representatives, small enterprises, youth representatives, environmental organizations, cultural institutions, and independent technical experts.

Membership should be transparent, rotating, and publicly accountable.

Representation should also be designed carefully. A meeting can include many organisations while still excluding people with the least institutional power. The process should therefore explain how members are selected, whose interests they represent, how conflicts of interest are managed, and how residents who are not members can submit concerns or evidence.

The public should be able to monitor more than arrivals and visitor spending.

A stewardship dashboard should include:

The dashboard should also publish definitions, methods, dates, and responsible institutions. Data without explanation can create confusion rather than accountability.

A public dashboard would allow residents, businesses, and policymakers to evaluate whether tourism is contributing to community well-being rather than relying solely on visitor statistics.

Accountability should be visible rather than assumed.

Every major consultation should be accompanied by a public response.

Stakeholders should be able to see:

Participation becomes meaningful when people can see how their input affected the decision, even when their preferred recommendation was not adopted. Recent comments by the Minister of Tourism reinforce this principle. The Minister has emphasized that no single organization, stakeholder group, or interest can determine Aruba’s tourism future alone, and that the Tourism Master Plan remains a document that continues to evolve through dialogue and input. That perspective is consistent with stewardship. The challenge now is ensuring that participation remains visible after the consultations end. Participation does not mean every recommendation will be adopted. It means every recommendation should receive a transparent response explaining how it was evaluated, whether it was accepted or rejected, and why.

The goal is not to create the illusion of consensus. The goal is to create a transparent process in which disagreement can be acknowledged, evidence can be examined, and decisions can be defended.

Stewardship Is Not Without Challenges

None of this is easy.

Tourism stewardship sounds appealing in principle but becomes more difficult when decisions begin affecting established interests, political priorities, and economic expectations.

Governments may face pressure to prioritise short-term economic gains over long-term sustainability. Industry stakeholders may resist limits they perceive as constraining investment, development opportunities, or competitiveness. Community representatives may become frustrated if participation processes fail to influence actual decisions.

Even when there is broad agreement on goals, disagreement often emerges over who should bear the costs of change.

Resource constraints also matter. Effective stewardship requires data collection, monitoring, enforcement, public reporting, and institutional coordination. Without sufficient capacity, even well-designed governance structures risk becoming symbolic rather than operational.

Aruba should also be realistic about the challenge of maintaining momentum over time. Tourism strategies often begin with enthusiasm but lose credibility when commitments are not monitored, reported, or updated.

Stewardship therefore requires not only participation, but also institutions capable of learning, adapting, and enforcing agreed standards.

These challenges are not reasons to avoid stewardship. They are precisely why stewardship requires transparency, trust, shared responsibility, and clear accountability mechanisms.

The question is not whether challenges will emerge.

The question is whether Aruba is prepared to address them openly and adapt when circumstances change.

From Participation to Accountability

The ultimate test of Aruba’s Tourism Master Plan is not whether it embraces the language of sustainability.

The test is whether it changes decisions when evidence shows that the island is under pressure.

Will accommodation growth be adjusted if housing affordability declines?

Will cruise schedules be modified if congestion exceeds acceptable levels?

Will infrastructure limits influence arrival targets?

Will tax compliance be strengthened before compliant businesses and visitors are asked to contribute more?

Will results be publicly reported and independently verified?

A stewardship framework makes these questions normal rather than confrontational.

Success will not be measured by whether every stakeholder agrees. Success will be measured by whether Aruba can make difficult decisions transparently, monitor outcomes honestly, and adjust course when evidence shows that pressure on communities, infrastructure, or ecosystems is becoming unsustainable.

This is the essence of adaptive governance: not claiming to have perfect answers, but creating systems capable of learning, responding, and improving over time.

It replaces the false choice between tourism and community with a stronger principle:

Tourism must operate within the conditions that allow the community, environment, and economy to thrive together.

The Opportunity Now

The recent dialogue process could become the beginning of a more mature form of tourism governance.

Government initiatives, industry concerns, environmental warnings, community frustrations, and frontline operational experience all contain parts of the same solution.

What Aruba needs now is not another isolated vision.

It needs a shared operating system for managing the island’s future.

Aruba is not the first small-island destination to face these questions. Destinations such as Malta, Hawai’i, Iceland, and several Caribbean islands have increasingly incorporated resident well-being, housing affordability, environmental resilience, and community acceptance into tourism policy alongside traditional economic indicators.

The lesson is not that growth must stop. It is that destinations become more resilient when governance systems evolve before pressures become crises.

Aruba has an opportunity to learn from other destinations while retaining control over its own development path.

The island’s future will not be secured by choosing government over industry, industry over residents, or growth over protection.

It will be secured when every major tourism decision begins with four stewardship questions:

What are we protecting?

Who bears the costs?

Who shares the benefits?

Who has the power to correct the course when things go wrong?

If the answers genuinely include the people of Aruba, tourism can remain one of the island’s most important economic pillars.

If they do not, even the best-written strategy will struggle to earn the legitimacy required to succeed.

Because stewardship is ultimately about trust.

Trust that tourism revenues are being collected, managed, and invested responsibly.

Trust that environmental limits, housing pressures, and infrastructure constraints will be monitored honestly rather than ignored until they become crises.

Trust that commitments made by government and industry will be visible, measurable, and enforced.

Trust that residents are not merely being consulted about Aruba’s future, but are helping to shape it.

Tourism stewardship therefore begins with who is at the table, but it succeeds through accountability, transparency, and shared responsibility.

If Aruba can build those foundations, tourism can remain one of the island’s most important economic pillars while also strengthening communities, protecting natural and cultural assets, and creating opportunities for future generations.

That is not simply a tourism objective.

It is a governance objective.

And it may be the most important tourism decision Aruba makes over the next decade.

—

Randall Lacle

M.A. in Tourism Destination Management, NHTV University of Applied Sciences, Breda, the Netherlands

www.Buas.nl

Aruba’s minimum-wage change effective January 1, 2026, was a legislative change approved unanimously by Aruba’s Parliament on September 1, 2025, under the government led by Mike Eman. The change introduced a statutory minimum hourly wage of AWG 11.58 for employees aged 18 and older.

Workers doing 42, 44 or 45 hours a week receive higher minimum monthly pay than under the previous calculation, between Awg 121 and Awg 271 increase, depending on the number of hours worked.

I asked around and everyone agrees that this move would trigger additional inflation. In service reliant companies such as pool cleaning, housekeeping, an Awg 2,000 salary already means Awg 2,500 for the employer. Because margins are so minimal this will be charged back the consumer and prices will take a hike, further weakening our buying power. The cost of doing business is already too high on Aruba and small businesses are struggling, they will raise prices, then employees are again spending more, for less, and the cycle repeat.

A much better move would be to reduce the water, electricity and telephone rates which eat up big chunks of income. The state-owned companies providing these services are not supposed to make money, they should serve their communities instead of robbing their communities to feed the already inflated government machine. No more dividends to Cocolishi.

Many companies assured me they have very few people who earn minimum wages. Most companies supplement that to match CBS’s subsistence level according to each employee’s status – married or not, children, no children.

(The substance level in Aruba for one adult living alone Awg 2,697, two adults, with two children Awg 5,663. And it will go up the month following the minimum wage increase.)

It would be much more beneficial to take steps to lower the cost of living, by perhaps subsidizing healthy food, which would in turn influence the cost of healthcare. And healthier people are happier people. The BBO at the border and the cumulative BBO/AZV/BAZV levied on all goods and services makes everything on the island super expensive. It would be a genuine relief if the government lowered these two taxes and controlled the reduction, across the board, to verify it is indeed benefiting the people.

How about reducing the government’s expenses. Turn off lights, turn thermostats, limit travel, look at Arubus, the Post Office and all other semi-governmental agencies, to see where you can find savings, and use what you saved to invest in maintenance.

One of my friends writes: I can appreciate the desire to ensure a living wage but simply raising the minimum wage to a living wage does not accomplish that. First, we lack reliable data as to how many people actually only survive on minimum wages. Most minimum wage earners work in hospitality and take home a three- or four-digit amount in monthly tips (putting them over the minimum living wage).

Although well-intentioned, this suggested increase will inevitably have an inflationary effect, especially if government lacks the financial space to compensate employers for the increased expenses.

It’s also detrimental to our competitiveness as a country especially as the need to diversify our economy has never been greater. The previous and current governments are trying to develop an agricultural sector, matching the minimum wage to living wage will kneecap the burgeoning agricultural sector. To diversify the economy, government envisions the island as a hub for Latin America or European companies. The wage increase will kill our competitiveness, Bonaire has 0% corporate tax and Curacao will have a significantly lower minimum wage. That is not even taking into account the costs of production/operation in the region i.e. Panama, Colombia, Dominican Republic. Much better to reduce government costs and reduce or eliminate import tariffs, BBO at the border etc…

We are all aware of Ibersol Holding & Management VBA’s wish to build a hotel in the Hudishibana area, within the Tierra del Sol Golf community boundaries, and many have been protesting that plan, waving environmental flags.

While they do that, they do not really know the sequence of events that led us to the verdict in the case of the Government of Aruba Vs. Ibersol Holding & Management VBA.

When Tierra del Sol was first conceived as a planned community it included the construction of a hotel in the Hudishibana area. That was in 1995.

As you know the property was unlucky, owners came and went, one bankruptcy followed another, and finally the v/d Valks, who held the property were forced to COMMIT TO SELL the wreckage to FMV Holding, a local company. There was no money exchanged, FMV tried to rehabilitate Tierra del Sol FIRST by a suspension of payments granted for six months, THEN once things stabilized, they said, they committed to paying their bills.

That was the time the golf course got no water, remember? It was dying, WEB would not provide the course with water unless FMV showed WEB the money.

As FMV was struggling to ‘stabilized things,’ Ibersol Holding & Management VBA expressed interest in building the grandfathered hotel within Tierra del Sol and take that headache of land tax in arrear many years, and all other bills off FMV’s hands.

And that is exactly when the Government of Aruba asked Ibersol Holding & Management VBA to take over the whole kit and kaboodle, and that company for fear of being stuck with an upscale resort on a dying, derelict golf course, agreed to the deal, paid all unpaid taxes, cleared the books, pulled the owners association out of bankruptcy, pulled the real estate company out of bankruptcy and invested at least 10 million extra in rehabilitating the golf course, confident all along that the hotel construction will start any minute.

They put their money where their mouth was.

The government negotiated hard with Ibersol Holding & Management VBA, reducing the number of rooms, reducing the number of floors, refusing access to the beach at Arashi – yes, hotel guests will have to drive out of Tierra del Sol to get to the beach. The government nixed the all-inclusive idea and agreed to allow the construction of a super luxury, smaller property, issuing all permits.

Then for the last two-three years, the Government of Aruba has been unresponsive.

Ibersol Holding & Management VBA used the time to prepare a solid environmental plan, because the Natuurbeschermingsverordening, Nbv’s job is not to approve or disapprove development. The Nbv is design to investigate and plan how to deal with conservation, move plants, rearrange landscapes, with the aim of reducing environmental damages.

Ibersol Holding & Management VBA is prepared, it did its homework, it knows what to do with the 15 species of flora and 12 species of fauna in the project area, including eight protected species.

How do you know, you ask?

I know, because I live here and I see with what respect and diligence that company treats Tierra del Sol, its people, birds, and critters.

Ibersol Holding & Management VBA is a quality operator, and I do not want to see politics chase them out of the island. We know that all development on Aruba is like pulling teeth, painful and lengthy, I say, do not let a good fish get away. We already have a disaster of a refinery, abandoned, falling to pieces, don’t let it happen at Tierra del Sol.

The company invested millions in Aruba, since 2023, and must see a ROI, otherwise it will pull out, driven away by FALSE PROMISES.

Lincoln Gomez’ blog makes it clear that even GOA must operate within the law and cannot follow fly-by-the-seat-of-its-pants policies.

And while you put the policy into law, check how many condominium complexes are sprouting around the Eagle neighborhood – by far many more than what Ibersol Holding & Management VBA wants to build.