Between January and August 2021, 2.9 million tourists arrived in Dominican destinations
Taken from Diario Libre
SANTO DOMINGO. -The Dominican Republic will receive 4,840,376 tourists by the end of this year, a figure still far from the 6,446,036 non-resident foreigners who arrived in 2019 (pre-pandemic year), according to estimates presented this Wednesday by the head of the Ministry of Tourism (Mitur), David Collado.
Collado explained that between January and August 2021, 2,938,200 tourists arrived in the country and projected that, from October to December, "if everything continues normally within the pandemic," 1,552,621 visitors will arrive at national destinations.
He detailed that last August 476,575 non-resident people arrived in Dominican territory, a figure close to that recorded in the same month of 2019, when 497,390 tourists entered.
“We are going to end the year with 4,840,376 (tourists), which is a number we never imagined we would be able to have in 2021. We are giving clear signs that tourism is recovering sustainably in the Dominican Republic,” he declared.
The official highlighted that with the normalization of the influx of non-resident foreigners, the Punta Cana airport has once again positioned itself as the main Dominican terminal for tourists, receiving 59% of the non-resident foreigners who arrived in the country last month.
This terminal was followed by Las Américas airport, which received 25% of the passengers who arrived in August; Cibao airport, with 9%; Puerto Plata airport with 4%, La Romana airport with 3% and Catey airport with 0.3%.
He highlighted that 73% of tourists who arrived in August stayed in hotels, adding that this figure represents a significant percentage, since last year it was not so high.
In that same vein, the Deputy Technical Minister of the Ministry of Tourism, Jacqueline Mora, explained that in 2019 only 40% of tourists who arrived in the country stayed in hotels, which allowed the Dominican economy to receive US$420 million in foreign exchange in August.
“The average stay, which in pre-pandemic years was around eight nights for Americans and five for Americans, we see that now the average stay for Americans is around seven, and the overall average will begin to increase, along with the occupancy rate, because with the same flow of tourists, a longer stay means a higher occupancy rate and a better recovery for the hotel sector,” Mora noted. Closed rooms
Of the 80,000 hotel rooms in the country, 20,000 remain closed since the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, although 40% of these have not opened because they are under renovation.
The official announced this, projecting that by the end of the year the country would have virtually full availability in its main tourist areas. However, she acknowledged that smaller hotels are still recovering from the pandemic.
On this subject, the minister specified that there are rooms that depend heavily on countries that send tourists.
“There are destinations like Bayahibe and Puerto Plata that rely on Italian and European tourism, which are now reopening, as well as Canadian tourism, and that's why hotel rooms are opening as destinations reopen,” he explained. Cestur Restructuring
The Specialized Tourist Security Corps (Cestur) will be reformed and will receive, with the participation of the private sector, an injection of more than three million dollars, as announced by David Collado.
He reported that the reformulation of the entity will soon be presented to the tourism cabinet, to provide it with technology and working facilities with the aim of strengthening tourist security.
Collado emphasized that to date there has not been “a single case” of crime that has affected tourism.
