The president of the Grupo Puntacana, which owns the Punta Cana International Airport (PUJ), Frank Rainieri is hopeful that tourism will be back before the end of the year. The company has tentatively set the PGA Tour golf tournament at its Corales golf course for September 2020.
For the moment, though, the last 100,000 tourists left in special charters throughout the two weeks after the government ordered air and seaports closed on 20 March 2020. Rainieri explained that at one time there were 300 people sleeping at the Punta Cana International Airport, waiting for their evacuation flights. Rainieri said the airport provided food, towels and sheets for the tourists that spent the night at the terminal. The PUJ airport continues technically open to emergency flights, despite not receiving flights.
The more than 50,000 hotel rooms in the Punta Cana area were left with basic maintenance and security personnel to wait out the coronavirus pandemic. In an interview with Diario Libre, Rainieri says it is not the first time the hotels shut down because of a lack of guests. He recalled the 9/11 Twin Tower crisis, and the 2008 economic crisis, caused major lows in the tourism industry.
Of course, this is the first time the entire Dominican hotel industry is shut down, as well as that of the rest of the world. This is the first time that the entire airline and cruise industry in the world has collapsed.
Rainieri is optimistic that matters could turn for the better in time for some summer travel. We are talking about a US$7.68 billion industry. The ripple effects on agriculture, construction, commerce, practically all productive sectors, is already felt.
“The tourist industry in the area is not generating a penny of income. At the moment, we are totally shut down because we are not a factory that can work eight hours. Our raw material is the tourist and there are no flights, therefore, we do not have any kind of income, and in our particular case we will not see income in April or May,” he told Diario Libre.
“I believe that we have the capacity to recover and that we should not despair. This time we don’t know how people will react after the crisis, but the industry per se is eager to get back to work; all levels of vertical integration, such as tour operators, airlines and hoteliers, are prepared to go into operation once this health crisis is over,” he said.
He expects the hotels to barely cover costs after reopening and for another six or seven months as tourists search for travel bargains. He adds: “I am in contact with many institutions in the global travel industry and there is a big part of them that believe that this winter, after such a long quarantine, people in places like the United States, France, Italy and Spain will want to go out and travel.
The Grupo Puntacana and the Rainieri family were among the first to announce donations to help people get over the health crisis. A first donation amounted to RD$100 million. At a time when around 700,000 employees have been suspended, the Grupo Puntacana responded to the crisis by announcing that its employees would get paid on time and their full wages.
Read more:
Diario Libre
Forbes
USA Today
Travel Perk
Irish Times
Harpers Bazaar
Listin Diario
Listin Diario
8 April 2020