While I agree that there are upscale places such as Cap Cana and Casa de Campo it's true that the model in DR has been very much about high volume, low-cost. From the UK the key number is a week in an all-inclusive for £1,000 including a 9 hour return flight (which on its own costs minimum £500). After all the agencies take their commission and taxes are paid, hotels have to operate on average on around US$50 per person per day, all-inclusive and to do that you have to have serious volume. Once those flights are up and running and 80% of passengers go to an AI, yes, the remaining seats fill the Casa de Campo, the boutique hotels, the eco-lodges, the boys in Sosua etc. But without the AI's in Punta Cana the rest falls like a pack of cards.
I know the Americans reading this will say "ah but Jetblue flies all over the island" but it's important to remember that US visitors are "only" 50% of the total. You also need your Europeans, your South Americans, your Russians and your Canadians to get that type of volume. And this is why David Collado has been doing a whistle-stop tour to the owners of the big AI's in the last few days. These are the priority, once they get up and running the rest will fall into place. At this stage, reinventing what the DR is isn't really an option, it would take years and years to do that and the economic consequences would just be too great.
