Puerto Plata prostitution and its effect on the local economy

Status
Not open for further replies.

Robert

Stay Frosty!
Jan 2, 1999
20,573
341
83
dr1.com
Some interesting comments in this thread. LOL!

PD is a mix of AI's, normal hotels and residences (converted), with a mix of ownership.
It could well be the worlds largest group of hotel looking buildings within the same single complex.

It has been on the downward trend for years, renovating itself as a destination multiple times.
I remember the days when you could by all-inclusive rooms for $17 per day, thanks to the cutthroat tour operators.

Back to the hookers, everyone's favorite subject!!!!!
 

chrisgy

Active member
Jan 15, 2013
389
167
43
Now somewhat relevant but I wonder if these "females" like being referred to as la puta or ho? I know in Sosua there are some real hardcore working girls who worked hard to be a street rat but some of these females in other parts of the country would take big offense if you called them a la puta to their face. ............. Don't change the dynamics, just wondering.
They now like to be called chapi short for chapiadora
 

LTSteve

Gold
Jul 9, 2010
5,449
23
38
I think many men who come to Sosua would be doing so regardless
of whether or not prostitution is legal. The women here (for the most part)
are beautiful and the cost to vacation in Sosua /DR is cheap when compared
to some of the other Caribbean destinations.

Demand vs Supply? Which came first (no pun intended) the prostitute or
the john? Too funny. I've had a lot of discussions about this very topic with
my Dominican friends and every single one of them says the exact same
thing. If every single gringo on the island packed up and left tomorrow we'd have
just as many prostitutes as we have now, the only difference would be the
prices. (meaning they would be much lower)

Unfortunately LT you (like many before you)
seem not to want to address the BIG WHITE ELEPHANT in the room.

Enlighten me??????????Prostitution as you are well aware is the worlds oldest profession. It exists because it appeals to mans base needs. It will always be around. It is a financial transaction as much as anything else. The women involved are interested in one thing. Your wallet. Simple as that.
 
Last edited:

cruzan1

Active member
Sep 12, 2016
114
36
28
All of this talk about cleaning Sosua up and the tourists will come is nonsense.
How exactly are these tourists supposed to get here? The availabilty of affordable plane tickets is what fuels the resort market. This area will continue to shrivel up until the airport lowers its runway fees and the major airlines start flying in here again. Until then, the families are going to be heading into Punta Cana on one of the 60+ daily non-stop flights.
 

cruzan1

Active member
Sep 12, 2016
114
36
28
Enlighten me??????????Prostitution as you are well aware is the worlds oldest profession. It exists because it appeals to mans base needs. It will always be around. It is a financial transaction as much as anything else. The women involved are interested in one thing. Your wallet. Simple as that.

wait - so when she said "Te Amo Papi" that was a lie? I suddenly feel broken inside.
 

the gorgon

Platinum
Sep 16, 2010
33,997
83
0
All of this talk about cleaning Sosua up and the tourists will come is nonsense.
How exactly are these tourists supposed to get here? The availabilty of affordable plane tickets is what fuels the resort market. This area will continue to shrivel up until the airport lowers its runway fees and the major airlines start flying in here again. Until then, the families are going to be heading into Punta Cana on one of the 60+ daily non-stop flights.

tourism is not complicated..it is a simple matter of push and pull. the stresses of life push you to take a break away from your usual environments, to seek relief from the forces which defeat you after a while. the offerings of tourism destinations pull you towards them, to offer you palliatives for your condition. it is that elementary.

that having been said, remove all the prostitutes from Sosua and what exactly is the pull? we know that people head to Punta Cana in droves because it offers what a huge number of people want...cheap, eat till you puke accomodations, where one can engorge themselves in varying states of vegetation. Playa Dorada had that once, but it has fallen victim to life cycle realities. Sosua never had it, and getting every lady of easy virtue off the streets will not bring it. for all the people with an in depth understanding of the realities of Sosua, here is a question...what is there in Sosua which would cause a guy to travel 1500 miles to see? there is no Big Ben, nor Tower of London. no Sphinx..no Disneyworld. even on a caribbean level, there is nothing spectacular like Atlantis. there is no draw.

but think about this...men have been known to travel thousands of miles to get laid. to laze all day on a mediocre beach, with forgettable food and drinks...not so much.
 

windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
42,970
6,408
113
All of this talk about cleaning Sosua up and the tourists will come is nonsense.
How exactly are these tourists supposed to get here? The availabilty of affordable plane tickets is what fuels the resort market. This area will continue to shrivel up until the airport lowers its runway fees and the major airlines start flying in here again. Until then, the families are going to be heading into Punta Cana on one of the 60+ daily non-stop flights.

We have hardly ever had this discussion before.

Marriott obviously thinks the north coast has some draw, others don't think so.

No question the poor flight selections, bad connections, and high costs are a big problem.
 
Last edited:

windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
42,970
6,408
113
but think about this...men have been known to travel thousands of miles to get laid. to laze all day on a mediocre beach, with forgettable food and drinks...not so much.

And the DR government hates that thought. So think about that.
 

the gorgon

Platinum
Sep 16, 2010
33,997
83
0
And the DR government hates that thought. So think about that.

it is just the truth, windeguy...nothing less, and nothing more. i am a 70 year old guy, and if some guy called me from Sosua and told me he was at a table with four delectable young chippies, i would get to Sosua, post haste. do not call and invite me to a museum. i am aware that it has its special significance, but not enough to drag me out of the town.
 

Cdn_Gringo

Gold
Apr 29, 2014
8,695
1,162
113
Like any government, one cannot put too much faith in the political establishment here. The objectives of the politicos are often in contradiction to what could or should be done to better the lives of citizens and advance society. By now we should all know that outright bans do not work - Thou shall not lie with prostitutes or you may not use drugs are lost causes.

Politics at the municipal level is particularly nonsensical and ineffective. Sosua has never had a plethora of AI vacation choices. 20 years ago there may have been more than just one option such as we have now, but even then, there was nothing in, around or about Sosua that could sustain interest in coming here for a week or two every year. The hotel options dried up and now only Casa Marina remains and that is about all this little town can possibly hope to support.

If the location of a resort is in a place that offers nothing to do, the facilities, food and the beach at the resort need to be exceptional. The majority of tourists will not return time and again for mediocre unless the week is heavily discounted on Groupon to the tune of $20/day - even that will only entice a specific tourist demographic.

Sosua, and much of the North Coast never developed beyond the initial novel appeal of the All Inclusive resort concept. For a time, that is all that was needed as people came here to do just what the resorts offered, party, eat, sleep and get a sunburn. The attention span of people in general and tourists in particular has changed over time. It's no longer good enough to just to offer drinks via a funnel and 30m of overcooked chicken, pork, beef & fish and some french fries for the kids.

True to the Dominican entrepreneurial philosophy, people saw it working in Puerto Plata and began to duplicate the offerings in Punta Cana. In time, the resort industry in Puerto Plata became too busy counting their money to notice the inducements being offered to the tourist brokers from off island to switch their client offerings to the east of the island. PC was new, modern, offered a long continuous beach. There, like Puerto Plata there was nothing substantive to do in PC and there still isn't. Over time, it became cheaper for the travel industry to send their clients there rather than maintain the existing partnerships in the north. Winter escape tourists really do not care where they go as long as it is warm, there is decent sand, 10 successive cocktails makes them forget yesterday and when their stomach rumbles there is somewhere to go to eat enough to absorb the alcohol so that the ritual can be repeated the following day.

What the tourists want is cheap AI with sun, sand at little hassle. The north coast forgot the cheap part and failed to counter the competition in Punta Cana so operations shifted there. New hotels and tall towers offer a change of scenery in PC so tourists can stay at different hotels and pretend to be on a completely different trip year after year as long as it remains cheap and convenient to get to.

All that Sosua has ever had on offer is prostitution. Not always to the same degree as today, but even 10 years ago, there existed businesses that arranged evening excursions to Sosua and downtown Puerto Plata for the gentlemen who were looking for an off resort cultural experience. There is nothing else to do in Sosua. Tourists can drink themselves sick for a week or two but then go home and dry out until the next trip. Those who live here can't drink like that for 52 consecutive weeks, and thus cannot on their own sustain all of the bars and eateries that exist. If the ladies of the evening go away, Sosua will become the Detroit of the North Cost, not so much in size but sharing the same economic destitution and civic decay.

The local politicians are creatures of survival. They know all of this, and talk up a good line to appease voters or allay the concerns of the religious right, but really, they understand that curtailing the last vestige of foreign interest in places like Sosua, Boca Chica and similar venues, spells the beginning of some really destitute times for these places, the end of their political careers and a physical relocation to somewhere else where there remains some semblance of an economy.

It is entirely possible that the ladies of the evening may someday abandon Sosua for somewhere else, but that will happen because somewhere else offers a better opportunity to make more money and will not be tied to feigned moral outrage or political hucksterism.

There is no recovery model in play somewhere else for the politicians and civic leaders to copy, so for years past and the foreseeable future, nothing substantive can or will change in places like Sosua. Sure there will be some tinkering, but if you want butter on your bread, you need both the butter and bread.
 

Dr_Taylor

New member
Oct 18, 2017
351
2
0
There is nothing else to do in Sosua. Tourists can drink themselves sick for a week or two but then go home and dry out until the next trip. Those who live here can't drink like that for 52 consecutive weeks, and thus cannot on their own sustain all of the bars and eateries that exist. If the ladies of the evening go away, Sosua will become the Detroit of the North Cost, not so much in size but sharing the same economic destitution and civic decay.
Detroit will rise again, Cdn_Gringo. :)

Sure there will be some tinkering, but if you want butter on your bread, you need both the butter and bread.
I must say that this summary was and is the best written commentary on Sosua that I have seen in my years on and off this board. Moreover, the analysis was on-point.
 

jd426

Gold
Dec 12, 2009
9,775
3,062
113
Blue Collar Town in New Jersey
......................There is nothing else to do in Sosua. Tourists can drink themselves sick for a week or two but then go home and dry out until the next trip. Those who live here can't drink like that for 52 consecutive weeks, and thus cannot on their own sustain all of the bars and eateries that exist. If the ladies of the evening go away, Sosua will become the Detroit of the North Cost, not so much in size but sharing the same economic destitution and civic decay. ............

.

This Right here .. is the MATH of why Sosua will not work any other way ..not now or in the near future, and the powers that be have been trying for a FULL Ten Years already, at least .. with Zero success. imo

If anyone calculates the # of bars , vs Residents and lets say Bobby and Suzy from Idaho, family Vacationers . Would love to know the ratio..
There is NOT WAY they can keep these bars open .. its mathematically impossible to do .
And if you " convert them" to " Restaurants and Gift Shops" , they will also all FAIL. miserably .
This is the Big Lie the Authorities want to peddle .. that these places can just change their business model overnight, and the People will just magically show up..
Would love to know how the total # of Bars there actually are in Sosua, never mind the ones closed already & always changing owners, changing to Restaurant , then BACK to a Bar .
Its a staggering # if you consider the static Population of just Expats and Residents
, and there is only ONE type of " weekly, or Weekend " Tourist who can keep all those Bars and Hotels Open and humming along ..
 

windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
42,970
6,408
113
I don't see a big lie that reducing prostitution will magically be replaced by family tourism . What I see is a government as well as Dominican citizens in the remainder of the country, and investors like Marriott who want to see the reputation prostitution gives to the country diminished as much as possible.

The government in Santo Domingo does not care about the consequences of harming the prostitution business.

Nothing successful has been done as yet to accomplish the goal. So things carry on with minor disruptions to date.
 

windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
42,970
6,408
113
it is just the truth, windeguy...nothing less, and nothing more. i am a 70 year old guy, and if some guy called me from Sosua and told me he was at a table with four delectable young chippies, i would get to Sosua, post haste. do not call and invite me to a museum. i am aware that it has its special significance, but not enough to drag me out of the town.

And, I will repeat, the DR government hates the thought of that situation. Maybe some day they will even do something about it.
 

cruzan1

Active member
Sep 12, 2016
114
36
28
All that Sosua has ever had on offer is prostitution. Not always to the same degree as today, but even 10 years ago, there existed businesses that arranged evening excursions to Sosua and downtown Puerto Plata for the gentlemen who were looking for an off resort cultural experience. There is nothing else to do in Sosua. Tourists can drink themselves sick for a week or two but then go home and dry out until the next trip. Those who live here can't drink like that for 52 consecutive weeks, and thus cannot on their own sustain all of the bars and eateries that exist.

All that Sosua has to offer is prostitution..what????

We have one of the best beaches in the Caribbean plus waterfalls, zip lines, mountain trams, cave tours, windsurfing, kiteboarding, offshore fishing, scuba diving, surfing, snorkeling, banana boats, river rafting, atv tours, bewery tours, baseball games, horseback riding.......... all within 30 miles of town.

We live in one of the best places in the world and most of you don't even realize it. Stop worrying about the damn prostitutes, get out and enjoy the incredible area that we are lucky enough to call home.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.