Aruba VS. the world

In today's fast-paced world, understanding the dynamics of consumer preferences is more crucial than ever. At our market research startup, we leverage cutting-edge technology to capture and interpret data from a panel of smartphone users. Recently, we embarked on an insightful project to evaluate Aruba's standing among top tourist destinations, based on real-time data collected from American consumers. This analysis not only sheds light on Aruba's appeal but also provides invaluable insights into the competitive landscape of global tourism.

Topical-association measures 101

Aruba's tourism economy makes up the majority of the island's GDP. Not only is it important for Aruba to stay on top of potential traveler's minds, but vital that 'Aruba' is synonymous with vacation and a good time. Measuring this kind of topical association can be done through surveys and phone interviews, but what about the real world? Screenlake allows us to peer inside the mind of society, and find out the top terms that literally appear alongside 'Aruba' in actual smartphone usage happening around the world, on any app.

Here, we zoom into the US population. The Topic Trends plot below maps out the top terms that appear alongside 'Aruba' for Americans in the between August 25 and Sept 8th, notable for planning winter getaways. By far, the top term we see is vacation, a testament to the marketing efforts of the Aruba tourism board (and an ironclad benchmark for measuring the effects of future marketing pushes). What's more, we find that the Aruba discourse is tailored precisely to the accessible luxury tourism market that Aruba prides itself on. Tennis, Tropical, (Hot) Tub, and even the world Upscale and among the most frequent terms seen on smartphones around the world. Lastly, we see January a massively common occurrence, reflecting the well-known the concreteness of annual vacation timing among Americans. But what are we to do with ths information? Read on!

Aruba beats out competitors for tourism salience

We can see the same exact plot shown below, calculated for a dozen of Aruba's island competitors combined: Bahamas, Bermuda, Jamaica, Bonaire, the Virgin Islands, and so on. Unlike Aruba's clear adult vacation-reputation, these other destinations are associated with a mixed-bag of serious political terms, reflecting their presence in Americans' experience as nations as much as tourist destinations. Notably, the tourist terms that make the top 20 associated terms are much more family oriented: "Kids", "wildlife", and so on.

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What Aruba's Marketers need to know

Opportunities

1. ‍Winter is (always) coming: Aruba's well-known prominence as winter getaway space for American adults isn't going anywhere. For the rest of the year, especially the summer when US schools are on holiday, there is a large revenue opportunity to capitalize further on Aruba's vacation prowess, and ensure a more diversifies stream of revenue throughout the year.
2. Keep the focus on fun: Aruba's defining feature is the purity of its presence, meaning that every conversation about the island serves as an advertisement. No other destination's online presence is as 'fun' as Aruba's. For Aruba alone, all publicity is good publicity.
3. ‍Watch for trends: The large week-on-week changes of topics seen associated with Aruba reflect broad, fast changes in what Americans are thinking about. This is a blessing and a curse: following and predicting trends is hard but rewarding work. Screenlake's brand intelligence product makes it easy.

Performance across apps

Understanding public sentiment requires understanding context of conversation. While most brand measurement tools only capture public speech on Twitter and Reddit, Screenlake can dig into brand performance on absolutely any platform. Here, we examine a top competitor to Aruba --- Bahamas --- in public posts, dating apps, and AI chats. Aruba, impressively, is a fairly common sight in all 6.

• Romance: Dating apps host a lot of romantic discussion, but the most common destination mentioned is the Bahamas. Given the demographic breakdown of dating app userbases (verifiable via Screenlake's app intelligence product!) we can determine that Bahamas is referenced by younger single Americans more frequently. For this cohort, the salience of the Bahamas as a place worth mentioning implies (a) Aruba's dominance as an upscale luxury destination has not left a strong mark on the Tinder crowd, and (b) that dating apps are a great venue for advertising precisely in context.‍
• Success in AI: ChatGPT is trained on the text of the internet, and its conversations reflect historic likelihoods of any brand appearing in text. We can’t change history, but can always publish more content now for the next gen of LLMs. Aruba is takes the #2 spot for prevalence in AI chats --- and the absence of the Bahamas indicates how special this is. This represents the fruit of presenting the internet with an ocean of ad copy and creatives discussing Aruba as a vacation spot.
• Benchmark against reality: Private conversations (in Messenger) provide a rough approximation of the annual tourism spending that each destination receives. This creates an opportunity for custom social listening operations to pre-empt tourism activity through monitoring chat signals. Notably, these signals differ from what's seen on the public channels such as Facebook, highlighting the value of Screenlake's mor robut tracking techniques.

Conclusion

As Aruba continues to invest in its tourism sector, understanding public opinion and engagement becomes essential for maintaining its competitive edge. Our proprietary data offers a unique perspective, enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions that can drive growth and enhance visitor experiences. By analyzing how Aruba measures up against other destinations, we aim to support strategic planning and foster a deeper connection between Aruba and its potential visitors.