DR1 Travel News - 16 August 2016

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May 3, 2000
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Jazz nights in Sosua
Formal opening for Nickelodeon Experience
Excellence El Carmen opening 1 September
Travel maintains upward trend



Jazz nights in Sosua
As a warm-up for the 20th Dominican Republic Jazz Festival, live jazz shows will be held at restaurants and clubs on Calle Pedro Clisante in Sosua in the north coast province of Puerto Plata every Friday in October 2016.
The Dominican Republic Jazz Festival takes place on 8-12 November 2016 with performances in Santo Domingo, in coordination with the National Music Conservatory. Other concerts are planned for the Centro Leon in Santiago, Puerto Plata city and Cabarete Beach.

Festival director Maria Elena Gratereaux announced the traveling exhibition of promotional posters and t-shirts from the festival?s 20 years in Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata city and Sosua. The exhibition is organized by artist Adolfo Faringthon who has been responsible for the festival visuals for the past 16 years. Several are autographed by great visiting jazz players, including Arturo Sandoval, Dave Valentin and Giovanni Hidalgo.

The exhibition will be shown first in September at the French Embassy exhibition hall in Santo Domingo?s Colonial City before moving on to the Casa de Cultura in Puerto Plata city in October. The exhibition will then open 3 November at Sosua?s Casa de Arte and continue through January 2017.

As part of the events promoted by the DR Jazz Festival, teachers from the Berklee College of Music will be in Cabarete to give music lessons to students from the province of Puerto Plata from September to December 2016.

See more: http://www.drjazzfestival.com


Formal opening for Nickelodeon Experience
Karisma Hotel and Resorts is celebrating the grand opening of the Nickelodeon Experience in Punta Cana on 16 August 2016. Top tourism business executives are attending the event, along with Jamaican Minister Tourism Edmund Bartlett who is interested in a Nickelodeon being built in his country, according to reports. The Punta Cana property is Nickelodeon?s first-ever international hotel property. The second will open in Riviera Maya in Mexico.
Aimed at families with young children, guests at Nickelodeon have plenty of opportunities to interact with favorite cartoon characters including Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, Fairly OddParents, Boots, Marshall and Paw Patrol.

The Nickelodeon is one of several new hotels opening in the Punta Cana area.

http://www.nickresortpuntacana.com/


Excellence El Carmen opening 1 September
The Dominican Republic?s second Excellence Group all-inclusive is formally opening on 1 September 2016. The Excellence El Carmen is located in northern Punta Cana, in the Playa Uvero Alto area, south of Excellence Punta Cana and just between Sirenis Aquagames and Breathless Punta Cana.

Excellence El Carmen has 12 international and seafood restaurants and prides itself on no restrictions on restaurants, though some do require booking for dinner reservations.

The hotel is offering a US$149 person/night all-inclusive deal for booking before 22 August 2016 and travel from 1 November to 23 December.

The hotel chain has two resorts in the Dominican Republic ? Excellence Punta Cana and Excellence El Carmen, as well as two in Mexico.

http://www.excellenceresorts.com/resorts/excellence-el-carmen/


Travel maintains upward trend
The Dominican Republic continues to receive increasing numbers of visitors. Central Bank statistics for July show a 9% increase for the peak summer time travel month. In July, there were 619,724 arrivals, or 51,401 more visitors than in May 2015.

Foreign tourists make up 84.7% of the total visitors, with 47,266 more foreign tourists visiting in July 2016 compared to the same month in 2015. Travel from all source markets is up this year.

The Central Bank attributes the robust travel trends to the good economic times in the United States, the main source market. Credit is also given to the promotion for the country carried out by the Ministry of Tourism in cooperation with the private sector. The DR has again consolidated its position as the leader in tourism in the Caribbean.
For the first seven months of the year, some 3,662,878 foreigners and non-resident Dominicans have visited, up 235,792 compared to last year.

Non-resident travel to the Dominican Republic has consistently increased since 2013.

Most travel to the Dominican Republic comes from North America (United States, Canada and Mexico), with 60.5% of the total.

For the January-July 2016 period, Punta Cana International Airport continues to lead in number of non-resident arrivals with 2,134,653 arrivals. Las Americas (Santo Domingo) is next with 544,728, followed by Puerto Plata with 268,512, Cibao-Santiago with 128,027, La Romana with 66,007, El Catey (Samana) with 45,153 and La Isabela (Santo Domingo) with 3,711.

Punta Cana International Airport (PUJ) showed a 6.6% increase in arrivals. Most arrivals at the PUJ airport are tourists headed for the all-inclusive resorts in the Punta Cana area.

94% of tourists said they were coming for recreation, and 91.9% said they would be staying at a hotel. 55.3% of tourists said they are 21-49 years of age and the number of tourists is split almost equally with 50.2% male and 49.8% female.

http://www.bancentral.gov.do/publicaciones_economicas/informe_turistico/informe_turistico2016-07.pdf