Economic Downturn

After spending the weekend in Sosua where as you may have heard, city council is trying to clean up the prostitute issue and closed 11 bars in one night, owners of other bars (Cdn & US) said tourism is way down there to but their own places are doing OK. Definitely less tourists than any other time we have been there.....

It was stated that DR had lost 100,000 tourist trips from the beginning of summer to October and one has been told the tail off has continued. It apparently is affecting the East and South East regions worst and what you write confirms this.

In the context that tourism in DR has been growing about 7% annually for many years, the gloom portrayed by old timers is perhaps a bit overstated if not real today.

DR has lost a large number of American visitors this season on account of the negative news reporting earlier this year, and most of those losses are in the South and East from american visitors. But there is plenty of promising news from investors with plenty of new resorts being announced.

Incidentally the the whole of the Caribbean is suffering a drop in tourism due to depressed economic conditions in many countries and poor exchange rates plus the demise of Thomas Cook.

It is at times like these that the importance of domestic tourism is essential. Middle class Dominicans spend more when they are on vacation than foreigners as a whole. Places like Las Terrenas will be buzzing as normal this holiday season because they are diversified and rely on a mix of locals, Europeans, Canadians and to a lesser extent Americans.

I am told by a hotelier the Puerto Plata AI resorts are expecting good occupancy for the coming season and they tend to attract a repeat clientele and were not in the news like Punta Cana.

I bet the South West is good too albeit fewer go there. The capital will empty out in the next few weeks as the locals head inland and to the coast for holidays until late January.

It is not all bad news in the east. Club Med is now open in Miches - now a Chinese brand - Fosun owned.

It's still shoulder season and really hard to judge.  Hotels were full for Thanksgiving.

The hotel is Casa de Campo was at 50% for Thanksgiving...

Thank you lennoxnev for the detailed information. I was wondering if the rest of the Caribe and Mexico were experiencing similar challenges. Clearly they are.....

A long weekend in Las Terrenas about 4 weeks back was our first trip there. We stayed  a three minute walk from our hotel pool to the beach (water was warmer) and although there was not large numbers of tourists, on our long walk along the beach we still noted  fair number main french and german. And yes, many local tourists. THis was evident at the beach just outside Las Terrenas where it became crowed at the tables due to the intermittent rain. We'll definitely go back...

2VPSoldier: And a great lunch meetup in Sosua, right? 

I just spent the last 10 days in Cabrera and I made the comment and everyone agreed....things seem busier there than normal...tons of buildings going up...large and small...

Totally anecdotally...but, my 2 cents!

Correct - Sosua was the best gathering of the mere 3 I have been able to attend but definitely look forward to more.WHile I wish I could learn spanish quicker, it is nice to be in conversations where english is spoken....

Even when your Spanish is excellent, it's nice to speak in your primary language.  I always enjoy great conversation in English!

The headline figure in this article from Infotur is positive news:

Exclusive: Dominican Republic averages 71.9% hotel occupancy. November marks a significant recovery

http://infoturdominicano.com/rd/?p=53603  will give you the Spanish text which you can google translate.

The figure is arrived at by taking the occupancy average monthly rate for the past eleven months this year which includes the pre-'bad publicity' period. The occupancy rate for November was 68.9% and this is an big uptick from 55.1% in October and 54% in September.

Maybe it will get even better for high season.

Having worked in the hospitality business years ago, a 71% occupancy is not very good news. I can understand that the hotels are slow in Sept. and October but a healthy occupancy rate will be above 85%.

Business remains slow in all sectors in and around Casa de Campo. Christmas is knocking at the door and Minitas Beach has a hand full of tourists every day for the past month. I go every day to swim and the waiters on the beach are not making any money.

It states the eleven month average for Bayahibe and La Romana is 80.3%. So that isn't so far off your healthy number. It may be that the AI's have hung in there but the indepedent tourist numbers have dropped reflecting less activity outside the AI resorts. Plus the discounting to attract budget travellers will likely impact the associated businesses.