Robert said:
Welcome to the world of the cheap AI tourist. They are cheap, very cheap! Don't blame them, blame the people that bring them here and the lack of focus and direction by consecutive governments and tourism organizations here. This is still a tour operator driven market and it's a market that is dying. Tourism is not sustainable here under the current model.
Unfortunately the only people that are doing ok are the resorts that have the resources to break out of the above mold. They cater more to an independent market and offer an upscale product.
Trust me, I could write pages about this problem and Dolores could write twice as many as me.
Until the people in "power" wake up and start to coordinate themselves, then tourist dollar yield will continue to fall. Yeah, the numbers may go up, but what about the yield or profit per tourist?
There are signs that we are moving towards a more up scale market.
The more up scale we become, the less and less the AI concept will be adhere to, because wealthier people don't like to be tied to any single location.
The best model is having a decent flow of AI crowds and a constant flow of upscale tourists simultaneously.
For the time being, and I assume you know this very well, Punta Cana is at the forefront of up scale tourism in this country, with La Romana coming in second (thanks to Casa de Campo), and Puerto Plata is sort of dipping its toes into this market, but not full force yet.
However, I will tell you one thing, up scale tourist also require heavy investment in beautification projects, enforcements of most laws, architectural controls to ensure the highest architectural quality, and a host of other things that are not being done by the government, except in secluded private properties such as Casa de Campo or Cap Cana among others.
Let's see how Cap Cana evolves and how much of an impact it will have on up scale tourists opinion on vacationing in this country.
So far, the impact has been good, and this is considering that Cap Cana is not officially open yet, officially meaning the first hotel and the marina being open.
The Starwoods Hotels and Resorts company is now investing in upscale tourism and real estate development in the Punta Cana region, the Puntacana Group is expanding and fuctioning very well from what I can tell, and Casa de Campo is not doing bad either.
The building of Novo Mundo (believe me, I know we don't quite click on this, so let's not debate this), but this project has a possibility of being very successful, in part because it will include upscale housing, upscale hotels, upscale tourist, cultural, and shopping venues, and two marinas, not to mention an upkeep on the malecon and the creation of a new more pedestrian friendly malecon.
The presence of upscale tourists works well for Santo Domingo because we already have the businesses and venues that caters to them, but we are simply making better ways of accomodating them in whatever fashion they wish to be accomodated from. This certainly is good for businesses in this city, particularly those closer to the malecon and colonial sector.
The fact that upscale tourist will be able to use yachts to bring themselves to this destination, own nice dwellings or rent a nice room in a nice hotel, and attend a nice venues for entertainment, shopping, and the sort will in fact give a good name to the country, in the same manner Cap Cana and Casa de Campo are doing. The exception is that Novo Mundo will give the world an upscale urban tourism model, whereas Cap Cana and Casa are more countryside upscale tourism models.
The renovations that were taken on the colonial zone have help in making that area ready for upscale tourists, the beautification of Avenida Duarte (which we can all agree is much needed) and the creation of a Chinatown, in addition to all the other venues present in the metropolis and the creation of the Sans Souci project on the eastern part of the city has a high chance of working well.
We all know that upscale tourist spend more than lower tourists, and certainly the worst of all are the AI ship'em in and out crowds!
So, things appear to be changing, but as with everything, lets wait and see.
-NAL