SANTO DOMINGO - La Romana-Bayahibe was the tourist destination with the highest hotel occupancy rate during the month of January with 84%, according to the Tourism Intelligence System (SITUR), an agency of the Ministry of Tourism (MITUR).
SITUR provides information on the trends, structure and prospects of the tourism sector and its value chain in the Dominican Republic.
Overall, the average hotel occupancy rate was 78% in the first month of 2023, exceeding the average occupancy rate of 71% in 2022.
Punta Cana-Bávaro, the country's main tourist destination, reached 83% occupancy, placing it in second place. Puerto Plata, the once-powerful tourist hub that was at one time the country's biggest attraction and which plans to revitalize itself with several projects in the pipeline, came in third with 71.4% occupancy, thanks to the arrival of numerous cruise ship passengers who disembarked in this northern region last month.
Samaná, another of the country's current trendy attractions, achieved 66.6% occupancy; followed by Sosua-Cabarete with 60.6%, and Boca Chica, the municipality of one of the country's most popular beaches, had 52.3% occupancy in its hotel facilities.
The heart city, Santiago de los Caballeros, achieved a hotel occupancy rate of 50.9%, while Greater Santo Domingo reached 47.1%.
Cruise passenger numbers grow by 20%
The Dominican Republic has experienced a substantial increase in the movement and arrival of cruise passengers through the country's tourist ports, according to a report by the Dominican Port Authority (Apordom), which reflects a growth of 20% during 2022 compared to 2019, the year prior to the pandemic.
The document details that 194 more cruise ships arrived in 2022 than in 2019, representing an overall growth of 37%. This increase in cruise ship arrivals is primarily due to the addition of Taíno Bay Port in December 2021, as well as the rise in cruise ship traffic at Catalina Island and the Port of Santo Domingo, according to a publication in Listín Diario.
In 2022, the ports that received the most cruise passengers were Amber Cove and Taíno Bay with a total of 1,026,344 cruise passengers, representing 77% of the total that arrived in the year.
Thirdly, there is the Port of La Romana where the total number of cruise passengers represented 15% of the total received per year.
