20 % occupancy rate in the hotels on the North Coast...

Its not just how much "they" can screw things up. People have a lot less money to travel these days. Europe is almost in a meltdown. The dollar is falling. I have not worked since june of 06. People are not taking vacations while worrying about how they are going to pay the rent or mortgage.

DR Mpe said:

I am talking about the 10 last years. You can not blame everything on the economy. Well I guess politicians can.

Click to expand...

Well you can blame the politicians for a lot, but you can't blame the government for private hotels not giving high quality service....etc.

Meanwhile Domincan Today has an article stating that a 4 month record in growth has been set. I guess they are all in Punta Cana. It seems they lightly touched on the fact that it was a lot of Dominicans arriving and I assume visiting and staying with families. http://dominicantoday.com/dr/economy/2011/5/16/39559/16M-tourists-set-4-month-record-growth

I'm sure they make the numbers up as they go along

Would you rather have 100,000 tourists with an average yield of US$30 a day or 50,000 at US$70.00 per day? The $$$ yield has been decreasing slowly for years, this is the number that matters.

I refer back to the thread below.
http://www.dr1.com/forums/north-coa...ers-warns-puerto-plata-s-tourism-decline.html

gandolf50 said:

Its not just how much "they" can screw things up. People have a lot less money to travel these days. Europe is almost in a meltdown. The dollar is falling. I have not worked since june of 06. People are not taking vacations while worrying about how they are going to pay the rent or mortgage.

Click to expand...

Not to mention the exhorbitant price of airline tickets to the DR these days. In March, my roundtrip ticket cost $500. Now, to fly to the DR in July, the cost is close to $800! I fly AA, but all airline prices have gone through the roof....

there is the rising price of the airline tickets, but also the below average quality of the hotels. For European tourists, just compare prices and hotels between the DR and f.e. the Turkish riviera... I hate to say this, as I love it here, but they will have to up their game if they want back in the race...

In fact, tourism for 2011 to date for the entire country is up 5% from last year! The DR is on track for another record year.

1,634,776 tourist arrivals by air from January-April 2011 compared to 1,553,393 for January-April 2010

Meanwhile, Muerto Plata airport received 171, 663 tourist arrivals in that same period this year for its so called high season
200,766 arrivals in the same period in 2010
245,595 arrivals in the same period in 2009
257,342 arrivals in the same period in 2008

Banco Central de la Repblica Dominicana

You just can't blame the economy when tourism in other parts of the DR is up and on the north coast it is way down. It has to be destination-specific issues. Maybe a bad reputation, (some deserved, but mostly not). Maybe poor marketing. who knows?

edm7583 said:

Meanwhile, Muerto Plata airport received 171, 663 tourist arrivals in that same period this year for its so called high season

Click to expand...

You must be very brave, if you want to fly in and out from MUERTO Plata airport:laugh:

Chrismic said:

You must be very brave, if you want to fly in and out from MUERTO Plata airport:laugh:

Click to expand...

With those numbers, me thinks the name is appropriate.

edm7583 said:

In fact, tourism for 2011 to date for the entire country is up 5% from last year! The DR is on track for another record year.

1,634,776 tourist arrivals by air from January-April 2011 compared to 1,553,393 for January-April 2010

Meanwhile, Muerto Plata airport received 171, 663 tourist arrivals in that same period this year for its so called high season
200,766 arrivals in the same period in 2010
245,595 arrivals in the same period in 2009
257,342 arrivals in the same period in 2008

Banco Central de la Repblica Dominicana

You just can't blame the economy when tourism in other parts of the DR is up and on the north coast it is way down. It has to be destination-specific issues. Maybe a bad reputation, (some deserved, but mostly not). Maybe poor marketing. who knows?

Click to expand...

Like it or not the crack down on the women in Sosua is having an effect on tourisim in the North coast.

I have read somewhere that it was 300.000 German tourist in North cost in year 2000, in year 2010 was it only 35.000 German tourists
Many of this typical German bars in Sousa has many empty seats in their bars for the moment.

Smaller cheaper hotels survive, but more expensive and A1 suffers.
Are the prices to high compared with other A1 hotels in Caribbean ?
The cheapest price I found in North coast was 67 US.dollar a day, in Cuba can I stay for 35 us.dollar a day at a A1 hotel, include bus transport to and from a bigger city.

When I first visit DR and Sosua for a few years ago, because I had to move out of Cuba, since my tourist visa expired, I decide to stay in Sosua for some time, to my son and daughter would visit Cuba a few months later and meet them there again.

I am from Norway and had never heard anything about Sosua or DR, when I first come here, and was surprised about how simpler and easier it was to live here compared with Cuba , like live so long time you want on a tourist visa, the food, legal prostitutions, cable television, internet, nice beaches, whorehouse, casino. rent cheap apartments or long term hotel rates and even work here, buy houses and cars,etc.....You can read a lot about Cuba in the news or in tourist news , but very little about DR.
I believe many Europeans knows very little about DR. Maybe the government should promote DR better in Europa ?

But if Obama would be re elected, will it only takes a few years before the blockade is gone and many American tourist will visit Cuba legal. And with the new privateering rules in Cuba now, has it been over 50 new private restaurants in Havana the last and they invest in building new hotels and make better service to their tourists.
Then will DR Suffer more and loose more tourist to Cuba.
A normal Cuban hotel worker, make only 20 dollar each month now, so cheap labour crafts .

badpiece33 said:

Like it or not the crack down on the women in Sosua is having an effect on tourisim in the North coast.

Click to expand...

I was in several bars and disco last night , was a lot of prostitutes there.
But fewer tourists, and more black Americans than I have seen before.
Compared with my stay in 2009, it is more hard core prostitutes now. fewer easier part time or vacation hookers.
I try to stay away from them now, they lies and make problems and steal from you, most of them.

And the numbers say it is the A1 tourist that doesn't visit North coast for the moment, that is not the typical tourist that goes after prostitutes . The smaller and cheaper hotels, that has most male tourist has lost fewer costumers.
So I don't completely agree with your statement

It is really hard to say why the tourism has been going down in the north of DR but it is probably because of several different reasons.

Firstmost I think tourism has been totally aimed at the AI and big resort travellers. Thoose who like to be "trapped" in a big resort. I think nowdays people are a lot less afraid...especially in DR...to take a look outside....and the big resorts kind of make it harder still....even though it might not be necessary, like say 20 years ago.

Although the other tourist spots like Punta Cana and many others also offer AI...but maybe that are not that big. Northcoast after all was (and maybe still is?) the biggest tourist spot.


Then prices are not as cheap as they could be I think. With that amount of vacancies the price could probably be taken down a lot...for hotels and such.

I think north coast is in a transformation into smaller hotels.

Anyway I don't really see the problem....a little less tourists just feels good. It means more beach for me

There are still lots of fun things to do....and personally I like to meet local people more than other tourists when I am there.

Is it unfortunate how Puerto Plata and the North Coast's tourism has steadily decreased over the years when Punta Cana has steadily increased. There are several factors that play into this but Punta Cana has higher quality resorts, government backing and the private sector is, generally, working towards the same goal. There is more unison on the East Coast, IMO

The government let the North Coast slip over the years and the private sector in moving in different directions. In any case, there is a huge amount of pressure on the Ministry of Tourism to get the North Coast back on its feet. Although it seems the government is doing nothing, there are a couple programs in place to get things moving again.

Transat Tours from Canada will be increasing their flight to POP with help from the government and on May 13th, USAID, Inter-American Development Bank, cluster Puerto Plata, and Ministry of tourism officially announced an action plan to promote the North Coast.

We all know that a lot of things are announced in the Dominican Republic and never implemented but there is money and attention being given to the North Coast's situation.

Caribbeandreamto said:

Is it unfortunate how Puerto Plata and the North Coast's tourism has steadily decreased over the years when Punta Cana has steadily increased. There are several factors that play into this but Punta Cana has higher quality resorts, government backing and the private sector is, generally, working towards the same goal. There is more unison on the East Coast, IMO

Click to expand...

I believe goverment and the private sector are one and the same thing if you dig deep enough in PC.

Edm7583
Quoting you " In fact, tourism for 2011 to date for the entire country is up 5% from last year! The DR is on track for another record year.

1,634,776 tourist arrivals by air from January-April 2011 compared to 1,553,393 for January-April 2010

Meanwhile, Muerto Plata airport received 171, 663 tourist arrivals in that same period this year for its so called high season
200,766 arrivals in the same period in 2010
245,595 arrivals in the same period in 2009
257,342 arrivals in the same period in 2008

Banco Central de la Repblica Dominicana

You just can't blame the economy when tourism in other parts of the DR is up and on the north coast it is way down. It has to be destination-specific issues. Maybe a bad reputation, (some deserved, but mostly not). Maybe poor marketing. who knows? "

EDM -

This is great stuff – somebody actually giving figures! Puerto Plata – Muerto Plata – very good but I do think edm7583 you have missed something!
One of the other airports that serves the north coast is Cibao and if you take the non resident numbers as those coming to the north coast then you get a slightly different picture.
2011 168,704 Puerto Plata , 109,793 Cibao Total 278,497
2010 197,425 Puerto Plata , 114,875 Cibao Total 312,300
2009 241,695 Puerto Plata , 99,234 Cibao Total 340,929
2008 254,045 Puerto Plata , 115,020 Cibao Total 364,065

If you look at more detail, the numbers of US and Canadians coming here has been more or less flat over this period but the european visitors have dropped significantly to the north coast.
This would suggest that it is airfares that have a significant effect for european tourists. The downturn in the economy too will have an effect overall but it is not really reflected in the US and Canadian numbers coming to the north coast for 2008 to 2010.
I think it is great that somebody is actually putting numbers out, but I do think you have to consider those coming to Cibao too!

Olly