Will Dominican tourism feel the opening of Cuba to the US? Its going to feel something, I'm not too sure if it will be as the dooms day scenerio many are painting here.
Will it hurt the European component of Dominican tourism? No, Cuba is already one of the largest tourist destinations in the Caribbean with around 2 million tourists (almost all Europeans, although many Americans do visit despite the embargo). DR has not started to bleed because of that competition, despite the fact that many of the Spanish owned resorts that exist in the DR also have similar resorts in Cuba as well. Also, Cuba's tourism is on the all-inclusive model just like the DR's.
Will it hurt the American component of Dominican tourism? Don't know by how much, after all, Puerto Rico is an american territory. They can travel there without a passport, without changing currency, if they stick to San Juan's colonial core, Condado, and Isla Verde areas they don't even need to learn a few Spanish words!! Despite that, Dominican tourism has seen an upsurge in visits from Americans, that's taking into the account the necessity of having a passport, exchanging money, having to deal with customer service that is not always able to communicate in anything other than Spanish and/or a very sketchy English, etc. If DR managed to increase its American tourists without throwing Puerto Rico into a tailspin, well then what could be expected once Cuba opens up to the American market?
Besides, Dominica tourism is beginning to grow on the up market segment and while in Puerto Rico the same what ifs questions that have been presented on this thread are beginning to creep into the minds of Puerto Rican tourist officials, the truth of the matter is that competition from the DR will not cause PR's tourism to collapse.
In fact, competition never hurts. If anything, it makes the products better.
If that is not the case, can someone list just ONE tourist destination on this earth that has been doomed due to increased competition?
And no, tourist destinations that collapsed due to political instability, economic meltdowns, etc does not count.
List just ONE destination that has gone belly up due to competition alone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BTW, the Caribbean region receives every year around 20 to 30 million tourists.
The DR see's 3 to 4 million of them.
Since when does a 13% to 20% of the market share equals a monopoly????
Fidel will most likely be dead by this time next year, at least that's what I think. We should all be happy for the Cubans, its the best thing to ever happen to them since 1959!
-NALs
aranoid:
