Yet another reason to stay in a luxury vacation villa instead of an over-crowded all-inclusive hotel...it costs a tad more but you get so much more. Bonus: No Poo in the Pool! Just sayin... :cheeky:
- Thread starter Drake
- Start date
British tourists stage sit in complaining about local Dominicans behaviour
Beware of those "super cheap" deals. My daughter was guilty of purchasing such a deal in a POP hotel recently. Her room toilet didn't work. There's a reason that hotels offer "super cheaps." The level of hotel saturation and competition in the DR is daunting. "Super cheaps" are struggling to keep up. The hotel changed my daughter's room. She reported that while the hotel was disappointing, the excursions more than made up.
Agree with your comments flyinroom. No supprise that the only place where this story appeared was the Daily Mail. Another nasty piece of s**t.
But, 12000 is not cheap, bro! How can you say it is cheap when it is 95 bucks per person, a night in a 3rd world country?
It may be cheap for the LOCALS! But not cheap for foreigners. And that is where the hotel management has dropped the ball big times.
I do not care about Locals this, locals that. if you want FOREGNERS, TOURISTS to vist your country, your hotel, they need to be treated with respect. They cannot be intimidated by locals. The hotel has to be able to put LOCALS in their place like the FOREIGNERS. Period
This is not hotel! It is A COCK FIGHT PLACE!
Those are local rates... which means they are HIGHER than foreign rate for any country.
That's why I book resorts through German tour operators.
Btw British rates are one of the cheapest in the market (for Hotel Stay) for example last year in off-season, Bahia Principe Punta Cana (where our macho fighters vacationed) cost just over $40 wholesale per person per night.
Pretty normal stuff, if it was Sosua ... and it would be the Dominicans complaining about the tourists.
I just checked, local rate is 2400 pesos per person per night in Riu Merengue (what the client pays). So yes, the Britons could have complained about the "cheap" rate the locals paid, but actually one who screwed them was Thomson charging them 100+ dollars per room per person pernight than what the hotel charges them wholesale.
In the DR, travel agents all sell at the same rate most of the time unless they have a special arrangement for a certain hotel where they bring huge groups. They get about 10% commission (discount) off the published rate, so US$52.5 rate the DR travel agent pays for Riu Merengue is roughly the same as what is wholesale in Spain. For large groups additional discount of up to 10% is possible, plus some free rooms for every XYZ participants (which can be resold).
With a 1000+ large local group, it is clear this was a corporate-sponsored holidays for employees, which included low level factory workers, guachimanes, etc. No self-organized group reaches 100 persons, much less 1000 persons.
Affluent DR families (who drink and eat much as well, but make less scandal) prefer 5 star resorts and usually go to Punta Cana. Corporate sponsored trips for factory workers usually select among the cheapest hotels on the market.
In the DR, travel agents all sell at the same rate most of the time unless they have a special arrangement for a certain hotel where they bring huge groups. They get about 10% commission (discount) off the published rate, so US$52.5 rate the DR travel agent pays for Riu Merengue is roughly the same as what is wholesale in Spain. For large groups additional discount of up to 10% is possible, plus some free rooms for every XYZ participants (which can be resold).
With a 1000+ large local group, it is clear this was a corporate-sponsored holidays for employees, which included low level factory workers, guachimanes, etc. No self-organized group reaches 100 persons, much less 1000 persons.
Affluent DR families (who drink and eat much as well, but make less scandal) prefer 5 star resorts and usually go to Punta Cana. Corporate sponsored trips for factory workers usually select among the cheapest hotels on the market.
It has everything to do with culture. The i dont give a f-ck about anyone but myself culture. The only culture this country has. Dominican lower/middle class is as filthy as it gets. How many times in the U.S. have you walked to a pool to find a turd? How many times in the U.S. have you gone to the beach to find a turd in the water? Never happened to me back home. Has happened to me 3 seperate times here in the DR.
I have never in my life met another culture that values simple human decency so little as dominicans do.
This all reverts back to one problem, lack of education. Schools dont teach family values here. Families dont teach family values here. No one takes the time to teach children anything about taking care of anything. Everything is about seeing how quickly you can destroy something and then hoping someone gives you another one. If this country lasts another 50 yrs without imploding I will be very surprised.
Disclaimer: yes yes yes, i know, not all dominicans are the same, blah blah blah, but when 95% of the population is like that, well then....
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95% of the population that I have met is like that. Shouldve fixed that but it wouldnt let me edit.
That is really funny about the culture part! Therefore, other people do not need to venture in the Dr! Because, even if you pay big bucks, the locals will still be able to overun you!
Wow!
This is not culture and this does not include 95% of the population. There is a generational breakdown here in DR that is very evident in the significant change in tone over very recent years. New mothers and grandmothers have sprung sprogs into a void in moral, ethical and respectful thinking, I don't know what happened but I can draw a very definitive line between a generational age gap and the drop in those standards I mentioned above.