The president of the National Hotel & Restaurant Association, Ramon Prieto says that the slowdown of the US economy could turn into good news for the DR hotel industry. He said that if the US suffers from a recession, Americans will begin to cut down on travel, and will prefer shorter vacations and destinations that are closer to home, such as the DR. "In case that happens, we could take advantage of the situation because we are near to the US and we are a low-cost destination," said Prieto. Prieto urged the start of an intense promotional campaign to promote value-packed vacations to this market that will be demanding lower cost travel products. He spoke during a press conference to announce the Dominican Annual Tourism Exchange (DATE), a marketplace to sell travel to the DR to US travel re-sellers. DATE will be held 29-31 March at Casa de Campo, La Romana. (15 March 2001)
