Punta Cana Group CEO Frank Rainieri says that the Dominican Republic must not “rest on its laurels,” as the top Caribbean tourism destination now that relations between the United States and Cuba are in the process of normalization. “For more than four decades, Cuba has been the forbidden fruit for US tourists, who make up our major market, so we can expect hundreds of thousands to shift towards there,” stated Rainieri.
Taking part as the keynote speaker at the American Chamber of Commerce luncheon yesterday, Wednesday 25 March 2015, Rainieri said that he was not afraid of the competition, because the Dominican tourist industry was born competing.
He stated that the first thing that the tourist industry has to do is to challenge local obstacles, which are stronger than foreign competition. “[Tourism] did not reach five million tourists and more than 68,000 rooms by happenstance,” said Rainieri, highlighting the strength of the country’s tourism sector. Nevertheless, he confessed that he does fear that Dominicans will ignore how the tourist industry has achieved its current level. He stressed that the direct and indirect contribution of tourism to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Dominican Republic in 2014 was 15.1%, according to preliminary figures in the annual analysis by the University of Oxford for the World Travel and Tourism Council, and not 7.6% as the Central Bank had published, which, according to Rainieri, does not cover the participation of all of the industry.