"The hotel sector in Puerto Plata has never had a season like this one, which is why hotels have no room availability.".
Puerto Plata expects to receive two million cruise ship passengers in 2024. Last year, 1,736,000 visitors arrived in the "Bride of the Atlantic" via cruise ships, almost 90% of those who arrived in the Dominican Republic.
Mileyka Brugal, president of the Puerto Plata Chamber of Commerce and Production and of the Free Zone Corporation; Nilson Martínez, vice president of the association; Sixto Peralta, past president; and Carlos Rodoli, president of the Association of Hotels, Restaurants and Tourism Companies of the North (Ashonorte), highlighted that 58 cruise ships are projected to arrive this March, while 74 arrived last January, and there were days when five cruise ships arrived simultaneously.
During their participation in the "Economic Meeting of the newspaper Hoy", the businessmen explained that the hotel sector of Puerto Plata had never had a season like the current one, which is why the hotels do not have room availability.
"This is yet another example of the recovery of Puerto Plata as a tourist destination, after hoteliers faced a difficult economic situation. This growth in hotel occupancy has been driven by local tourism, especially on weekends, which is why stays from Monday to Thursday are shorter," they said.
Puerto Plata has 9,000 hotel rooms and 27,000 rooms available for short rental.
Hoteliers emphasized that the Punta Bergantín tourism development will help provide the necessary hotel rooms for the province. The comprehensive development plan includes at least 4,500 new hotel rooms, 2,000 residential and mixed-use tourist units, an additional 2,500 units, a golf club, and publicly accessible beach clubs.
They stated that the first months of 2023 were very slow, because the main source market is Canada, which experienced a slowdown in starting its operations.
They recalled that in the 1970s a master plan was created for the tourism development of Puerto Plata as a province, which functioned for many years and was led by the Central Bank through Infratur and is known as the Playa Dorada tourism project.
They highlighted the integration and synergy between the business sector of Puerto Plata, especially in recent years between the Tourism Cluster, Ashonerte and Playa Dorada, with the leadership of the Puerto Plata Chamber of Commerce and Production, who have helped the resurgence of tourism in the province.
Puerto Plata was left out of a tax incentive law that represented a greater attraction for building tourist and hotel developments in other areas of the country, they stated.
They pointed out that being outside that law for 10 years seriously impacted the province as a tourist destination and generated a lack of investment in the area.
They argued that in Puerto Plata there was no possibility of increasing the supply, as happened in other tourist destinations in the country.
They indicated that this incentive is currently being enjoyed and a resurgence of the tourist destination has been seen, especially in cruise tourism.
They explained that Puerto Plata was removed from the Tourism Incentives Law because it was considered that it had enough hotel rooms, about 14,000 at the time, and it was said that Puerto Plata would be more competitive if it did not grow in the number of hotel rooms.
They recalled that Puerto Plata received nearly one million tourists by air before 2002, and in 2004 only 343,000 arrived, representing a collapse.
They announced that they are working with two university centers on the creation of an economic observatory in Puerto Plata.
Source: Today.
