Actually,
mike775103 said:
On the official government tourism site for DR they note that only a small portion of the tourists come from the US. Maybe it is because I can get regular air service from Minneapolis to Cozumel and or Cancun any time of the day with direct flights. I can fly straight to Cozumel in about 4 hours. POP is about the same air distance, but because of the limited flight schedules on all the carriers it takes from 15 to 20 hours to get there. This doesn't include the US$200 to US$300 price differential on the few flights available. Assuming that more tourists from the US would help the economy, the government needs to get involved in encouraging better flight availability from the US. How many tourists, especially those traveling with family, want to sit over night in an airport in NYC or Miami?
according to DR1 TravelNews of May 18, 2004 for the first four months of this year:
"The United States continues to be the leading source market for travel to the Dominican Republic with 29.4% of the total foreign air arrivals. For the first four months of 2004, some 324,629 tourists came from the US, 8.7% more than for the same period last year. Canadian travel at 272,111 made up for 24.7% of all foreign tourist arrivals. Canadian arrivals for January-April were up 6.3%.
Regarding European source markets, growth markets for the first four months of the year were France, up 10.6% (from 127,091 in 2003 to 140,503 in 2004); Spain, up 36.6% (from 42,451 in 2003 to 57,996 in 2004); the United Kingdom up 61.4% (from 34,594 in 2003 to 55,842 in 2004); Holland, up 82.2% (from 10,541 in 2003 to 19,210 in 2004); and Sweden, up 270% (from 1,234 in 2003 to 4,566 in 2004). German travel declined 8.7% (down from 85,674 in 2003 to 78,213 in 2004), and as did Italian travel, which dropped 11.5%, from 56,147 travelers to 49,684 in 2004 for the first four months of the year.
The main tourist source markets in Europe are France, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom and Italy. "
More and more Americans are finding the DR but I agree that with better connections even more could be enticed. Now the question that begs to be answered is whether that would be a good thing or not; from a number of perspectives. (I would ask the same question irrespective of the origin of the potential visitors - this discussion is just about Americans.)
