The tourist industry news of the week was the announcement by the Compañía Hotelera del Atlántico that it is closing its Bayside Hill Resort in Costambar, Puerto Plata, due to the noise and soot emanating from the Smith/Enron power station sited near the hotel. The announcement was made by Diego de Moya Canaan, president of the hotel. Hotelera Naco, that operates the hotel, who said that tour operators had cancelled their bookings bringing occupancy down to only 10% in May.
Last year, the Hotelera del Atlántico received a payment of US$1 million for damages and the commitment of Smith/Enron to resolve the problem so that the operation of the power station did not affect the hotel. This did not occur.
The company will now resume their suit against the station’s owners. They indicate the hotel is worth RD$250 million and will sue the electricity company in excess of that amount. Hotelera del Atlántico opposed the construction of the station from the start, but says that influential government sectors favored the electricity project over the hotel, thus thwarting all lobbying and judicial efforts to stop its construction in the vicinity of the hotel.
Commenting on the problem, Frank Rainieri, president of the Hotel & Restaurant Association says that it has come about due to improvisation and the lack of professional criteria. “I hope that nobody will argue that the power station has priority over tourism because the former could have been built in many other places. What could not be moved was the Costambar resort area or the hotel that was already in operation,” said Mr Rainieri. In his opinion, the construction of the station was “an abusive and gross violation of the regulations applying to the area, evidencing how fragile the ordinances of our institutions are.”