The National Hotel and Restaurant Association expressed its opposition to the signing of a joint promotion agreement with Haiti. Arturo Villanueva, executive vice president of the association, the leading tourism organization in the country, said they sent a letter expressing their position to Minister of Tourism Felix Jiménez. Asonahores says that the DR has everything to loose and nothing to gain from a joint marketing effort with Haiti. There are 38,000 hotel rooms in the Dominican Republic, and the DR spent US$10 million on international advertising last year. There are only about 1,000 rooms in Haiti, and Haiti does not have an international advertising budget. Haiti does have a very negative image and major health problems. While Haiti was a well known tourism destination in the 60s and 70s, due to the worsening of its political and environmental problems, the nation is now worse off. Internal turmoil and instability have not permitted the nation to relieve the health problems of the population. The proposed DR-Haiti tourism agreement provides for Dominican assistance to Haiti in the planning of their tourism industry, and proposes that facilities be granted to airlines and ground transport companies. Furthermore, the agreement favors joint marketing plan development and the development of joint tourism promotions that would include selling joint travel packages. Former Dominican representative for the Lomé Convention, the European Union cooperation program, Angel Lockward also told Dominican press that he strongly opposes the agreement. He said that the sale of Haiti-DR travel packages would be very detrimental for the Dominican tourism industry. He said that in the past six years several of the most important hotels in Haiti have been closed for sanitation problems. In Haiti, malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, venereal diseases are common. Haitians have not been able to maintain minimum hygiene controls, aside from the present political instability and security problems that affect the development of a tourism flow to that country. Lockward says that if the Haitian and Dominican government sell joint travel packages and the tourists visit both destinations, and a traveler becomes ill, it will be difficult to prove where that person became sick. He explained that if the person picks up an illness in Haiti and then travels to the DR, and becomes ill upon return to London or Paris, he will say he got sick in his visit to the Dominican Republic. Dominican tourism will be annihilated, he says. "This agreement would represent a terrible sacrifice for Dominican tourism, a healthy tourism that will be joining forces with a non-healthy tourism. It is suicide for Dominican tourism," he said. During the Balaguer administration, the DR signed a tourism cooperation agreement with Haiti whereby the country would provide technical assistance to Haiti in that country’s development of the industry. Asonahores does not oppose this aspect of the agreement. Villanueva said that they have met several times with the Haitian Association of Hotels and made offers to assist the association members in developing projects, plans and controls. But joint promotion and joint marketing has been excluded from the talks. President Fernández is scheduled to travel to Haiti this month to sign a series of bilateral agreements on travel, culture, postal, transport, and environmental issues. The most touchy issue on the Haiti and DR agenda is the migration problem. The Listín Diario has reported that Haitian authorities seek to include in the migration treaty a provision whereby Haitian-looking persons will have to be granted Dominican citizenship unless Dominican authorities can prove they are Haitian. Given the indigence in Haiti, millions of Haitians do not bother to secure their Haitian birth certificates and thus would have the right to Dominican citizenship. Press reports indicate also that the Haitian government aspires to restrict the right of Dominican authorities to deport illegal Haitians. As per the aspiration of the Haitians, for the Dominican government to deport a Haitian, the Dominican government would need first to request the permission of the Haitian government via the Haitian Embassy in the DR. Lockward said that Haiti has taken its overpopulation plight to international lobbyists seeking international support in their quest for the allowance of free movement of Haitians to the DR, a developing country with already a large population and enough problems of its own.
