The airfare money doesn't go into the DR economy, only the portion that reflects DR taxes. Your earlier figure of $1000/head makes more sense, as it'd be about $125-150/day/person (not an unreasonable average, given the condos rent for $50/night and Hard Rock charges $400-500/night) for 5-7 days. Also factor in $50-100 in cab fare (both ways, including those that get duped) for each tourist or family. $1000/person an easy figure to hit.
that passage of yours fails to take into consideration that the preponderant majority of tourists to the DR are AI tourists, and that the preponderant numbers of hotels are foreign owned. leakage, brother, leakage.