True story.
Last August, after more than a 12 year absence, wife and I decided to go to the beach. In this case the DR.
Sooo, there we go to our friendly travel agency to make reservations for POP, a place where we had been before.
When we asked politely for reservations for POP, the travel agent exclaimed... "I can't remember the last time a booked anybody to go to that place...I think is ran down...If you want, I can make arrangements for PUJ.. that's where we send everybody!"
Well, I did not know PUJ existed, so I told her to make the reservations and in a couple of days I'd let her know of our decision.
After that, I frantically looked all over the net for info on PUJ, which is how I came across DR1 and Debbys sites, and after looking at all the nice pics we said is a go.
The evening we went to get our tickets there was another couple we knew trying to book a week to any nice beach in the Caribbean. We talked them into going to the same place we were going, but after they finished making the arrangements we found out they were sent to Aruba. Go figure.
They don't run too many newspaper ads about the DR around here, the Mid-Atlantic region, and most times there are none.
The fact is that Americans have too many places they can choose from, and the ones that travel to the DR are probably just a bunch of renegades.
Incidentally, I have a US passport but when I arrive in the DR I'm always given a Dominican form to fill-in. I'm not considered a gringo.