Aruba’s travel and tourism industry is going from strength to strength with news that the number of visitors from the UK, one of its key source markets, increased by more than 26 percent in 2010.

According to the latest available figures, from January to December 2010 Aruba saw a 26.3 per cent year-on-year increase in visitor numbers from the UK (14,539 as opposed to 11,512 in the previous year). This comes on top of another record year, as in 2009 UK visitors to Aruba went up by 28.3 per cent, exceeding for the first time 10,000 in a single year. The Aruba Tourism Authority anticipates that it will surpass the 15,000 mark in 2011.

For this year the Aruba Tourism Authority’s UK office is implementing a £300k advertising campaign to further raise the profile of the island among UK consumers and to continue to increase the number of visitors.

Building on the last two years’ highly successful promotions, the new campaign introduces new visuals and branding but keeps the eye-catching ‘Oooh! factor’ slogan.

For the first time ever, the campaign will include supersides on London buses, while the island will also have a presence on the London Underground, as well as 125 Aruba-branded taxis driving around London and Manchester.

The campaign was launched at the beginning of January and will run for three months, until the end of March.

Aruba Tourism Authority UK director Joanna Walding said: “Despite the recession, ash clouds, the World Cup and economic uncertainty, Aruba had another record year and has remained one of the fastest growing destinations in the Caribbean for British holidaymakers. We have now firmly established ourselves as one of the top 10 destinations in the Caribbean for the UK market and we are second only to The Netherlands in generating visitors to the island among all our European markets”.

More than 30 UK tour operators now feature the island.