- Thread starter TropicalPaul
- Start date
Is this a terrible year so far for tourism?
My EWR-POP was quite empty today....UAL
My exit last Monday was filled with men.... large men of color.... hardly a female on the flight
That was Jet Blue.... POP-JFK
I couldn’t help thinking of you Sosua people
My exit last Monday was filled with men.... large men of color.... hardly a female on the flight
That was Jet Blue.... POP-JFK
I couldn’t help thinking of you Sosua people
I am retired and sit a lot in Parque Colon, next to the cathedral, and so I see tourists coming off of every ship and every tour bus coming from everywhere so these people can shop in Conde. ITS DEAD!..been here 6 years and every taxi driver and shop owner is saying the same thing as me. Whats happening? Even the ones who show up aren't spending like they used to. Restaurants are posting "No products from outside", as people are trying to buy at Nacional and come in and use a table to eat at for FREE. Managers kick them out. People that used to take a cab are now using 30 peso carritos. I HAVE MULTIPLE LOCALS OF EVERY AGE AND GENDER ASKING ME FOR MONEY, EVERY DAY. THEY WILL TAKE ANYTHING.
Your search is obviously faulty. There are far more than that on Airbnb. They have brought the market to its knees.
That does not surprise me at all. The tourists are in the AI resorts and cruises tightly controlled by the cruise companies. The more adventure oriented tourists are fewer over time resulting in fewer flights with horrible connections to the north coast and non-AI resort areas which are still at low levels compared to pre-Punta Cana times.
https://www.airbnb.com/s/Jarabacoa-...GAZINE_HOMES&allow_override[]=&s_tag=Tgdh3zf_
502 listings just in Jarabacoa.
502 listings just in Jarabacoa.
I know, but honestly this year it feels really different. Everyone I know who runs a hotel is saying the same thing, they are desperate. In my hotel we are running at about 30% revenue down from last year, and the acquisition cost for every new booking is way higher as we are fighting for position on the online agency pages - and we are lucky as we have a good reputation. One of my friends has a hotel in Jarabacoa and told me that she is in the same position and just about managing to pay the bills. She has not taken a salary in months.
Another thing I'm finding is that the guests seem to expect more and more and more for less money. I have spent most of today trying to explain to a guy who comes the same three weeks every year that we can't give him a room for 20% less than last year. He just can't see why things should not be way cheaper this year than last year.
There have been some good articles recently on how the hotel industry is undergoing radical changes
AIRBNB effect
Airbnb is now the single biggest hotelier in the world by a very wide margin. Could be a big reason whey actual hotels are having a tough time. Airbnb's number of listings surpasses rooms held by top 5 hotel brands combined and that was 2 years ago:
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfran...rpasses-ihg-wyn-hilton-marriott-listings.html
Airbnb is now the single biggest hotelier in the world by a very wide margin. Could be a big reason whey actual hotels are having a tough time. Airbnb's number of listings surpasses rooms held by top 5 hotel brands combined and that was 2 years ago:
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfran...rpasses-ihg-wyn-hilton-marriott-listings.html
yes - DV8 posted about my error.. I don't know what I could have done to get the search results that were so low- as there were only 65 results the first time? maybe I put in SD instead of the DR? Any way - I have now seen all the listing .. and - thus - am planning a trip down to visit!
Should I be sorry for the hoteliers? Most of the chains are foreign owned. I can not afford the "boutiques"
and ...
if I can get a 2 bedroom condo in the Zone for $85 a night, I can invite my nephew & girlfriend to visit from Puerto Rico (which is a much smaller island and were they get just a little rock happy)
Would I be undermining the economy of the nation?
MA, almost no consumer is going to worry about the traditional hotel owners regardless of where they are from. They are going to worry about getting the price price for a clean and safe accommodation in the area where they want to be. Aribnb is better at that than most hotels. That is why Airbnb is huge and growing.
I was one of the first people in the DR to sign up as a "Host" with Airbnb. Soon after that, they became the source of more than half of our clients. Now they are at 90% for our clients. However, we have far fewer clients than before because so many people are on Airbnb. Competition is great for the consumer. They asked me to be their representative in the DR a few years ago. My job would have been to recruit my own competition in the hopes of winning a trip to France. I respectfully declined, but I knew that competition was coming on line anyway.
I was one of the first people in the DR to sign up as a "Host" with Airbnb. Soon after that, they became the source of more than half of our clients. Now they are at 90% for our clients. However, we have far fewer clients than before because so many people are on Airbnb. Competition is great for the consumer. They asked me to be their representative in the DR a few years ago. My job would have been to recruit my own competition in the hopes of winning a trip to France. I respectfully declined, but I knew that competition was coming on line anyway.
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There are a lot of things which cause concern about AirBnB though.
Firstly, in DR AirBnB's don't generally charge or pay any tax. The ITBIS which hotels are forced to charge and pay forms a big chunk of tax revenue for the government, and allowing tourism to shift from taxed to non-taxed accommodation is not a sensible move. It's also completely unfair on hotels, especially since they have to charge not only 18% ITBIS but 10% Propina Legal.
Second, hotels are regulated and inspected. AirBnB's are not. They don't have to have fire safety checks for example. Most AirBnB's don't have guest liability insurance of any type.
Third, in a lot of major cities such as London, New York, Berlin, Barcelona to name a few, there has been a huge clampdown on AirBnB's because a) of the tax situation and b) because they are unregulated. In the tower where I live in Santo Domingo (yes MA it does have blue glass), there is now a complete ban on AirBnB's because they were causing problems in terms of security and noise.
I guess that AirBnB is a little like Uber. It came along, everyone said "wonderful look how cheap it is" and it almost knocked the existing players in the market dead. Then after a while large cities like London realised that they now have a completely unregulated monster and have had to reign it in. Uber had its licence revoked in London recently and there is also a complete ban on using any property in central London for short-term rental for more than 3 months. I think that if things continue going down the AirBnB route, we are going to end up with a similar situation in Dom Rep, which will be much more serious as tourism is such an important part of the Dominican economy.
Before Airbnb any hotel stay was a rip-off. Now with Airbnb we can afford to travel the World three times more. And many more Airbnb visitors go to Dominican Republic. They buy a lot of food in grocery stores to cook at home. I think Airbnb is VERY good for the Dominican economy.
Simply not true. DV8 showed that visitor numbers have gone up slightly, but there are 2000 AirBnB properties in Santo Domingo alone that were not there 8 years ago. A little more demand, a lot more supply, prices have dropped. Lower prices are NOT good for the economy, they are good for the foreign tourists, but when prices are lower, businesses make less money and ultimately local people earn less. And if AirBnb's are not charging taxes, then there are lower receipts for the government to spend on things like education and health.
It's also completely untrue to say that all hotels are owned by foreigners so they don't matter. Groups like Barcelo and Hodelpa are huge players and very much Dominican. And by law hotels have to employ 80% Dominicans so even the foreign-owned hotels are mainly staffed by locals.
You are absolutely right. And I did not intend to hurt feelings.
But on the other hand, for me - an average non-wealthy person. Before BnB with the only option being hotel prices we could travel once in three years. Now with BnB and being freed from the hotel prices we can travel three times a year. For 99.99% of people BnB is a new light in life. Is a godsend. Is a miracle. If mega wealthy hotel owners will "motivate" the Government to ban BnB ( like they already did in NYC, Amsterdam, Paris and London), we, ordinary people, WILL SUFFER A LOT. And will have to stop travelling at all.
Internal tourists in the Dominican also use Airbnb extensively. We have friends here that operate several and 90 percent of their clients are Dominicans. My wife and I rent several apartments for short term use and do no advertising, only word of mouth and we rent each a couple of times a month ( that's all the disturbance we want as we live on the middle floor) We get a mix of Dominicans and non-Dominicans.