Around 600 hotels accounting for around 80,000 hotel rooms have closed after the government closed land, air and sea ports to limit the entry of persons with Covid-19. The pandemic is global, but the effects in the Dominican Republic are especially hard given millions depend on the hospitality industry for their livelihood. Paola Rainieri, president of of the hotel and tourism association Asonahores, confirmed that operations have ceased at the hotels. She said all tourists will have left the country in the next 72 hours. Evacuation airplanes have been sent in to airlift the last remaining hotel guests.
Rainieri explained that just out of the Punta Cana International Airport some 30,000 tourists have been evacuated in specially arranged flights.
“We must understand the economic impact this pandemic will have on the sector, which is why we are asking for balanced measures for future operations,” she said. She said around 330,000 Dominicans are employed in the tourism sector, or around 7% of those employed nationwide.
She said the sector is optimistic, depending how the events evolve, that the hotels may reopen in 60 to 90 days. “That does not mean that tourism will return to the levels it was before,” he said.
She estimated recovery will take a year and a half. She stressed that the tourism sector has always been resilient, so it will once again recover as it has on previous occasions.
Likewise, in a statement, Asonahores expressed that in the face of this calamity that the world and the Dominican Republic are experiencing, its hotels and related companies have made every effort to try to reassign work to affect the least amount of workers possible.
“At present, we are working tirelessly hand-in-hand with the government, seeking the most viable solution and the protection of the families who make a living in our sector,” they explained.
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Listin Diario
24 March 2020