2020 Travel News Archive – Page 9

“Rediscover the Joy of Travel” is the new advertising message from Punta Cana. Grupo Puntacana, which owns the Punta Cana International Airport and four hotels in Punta Cana, is beckoning all to come down and enjoy the beautiful environment and the tropical music beats. The nation’s hospitality business is set to re-open on 1 July …

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Rafael Smith, operations director for Punta Cana International Airport, says 21 airlines have programmed flights to Punta Cana starting in July. Airports are closed through 30 June, but the government has yet to authorize the reopening on 1 July. Airlines have scheduled 508 flights into the airport for July, Smith told El Dia. These flights …

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Editor’s thoughts… The Dominican Republic takes its first steps to recover its tourism industry. The DR is a regional tourism leader, ranked 6th in international tourist arrivals behind the US, Mexico, Canada, Argentina and Brazil in the Americas. We need to build on that. Puntacana Group and Casa de Campo have been among the first to …

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Casa de Campo announces it reopens for business on day one of the official restart of the tourism industry in the Dominican Republic. The La Romana golf mecca is unfolding a program named “Casa Cares.” Andrés Pichardo, president of Casa de Campo Resort & Villas, says the company has invested in new materials and equipment, …

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2020 had already started slow. Central Bank statistics for air arrivals for January and February 2020 were 1,122,410, 6.7% less than for the same period in 2019. Travelers feared Covid-19 could disrupt their trip and many canceled early on. The Dominican Republic was still recovering from the fake news media storm that wrongly blamed Dominican …

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The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has created a Global Covid-19 Airport Status platform that is updated through the Notam service. The Notam service is how airports and civil aviation entities report on flight operations and airport status. Several airports around the world have scheduled opening as of 1 July, including international airports in the …

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Apple Leisure Group’s executive chairman Alex Zozaya gave an overview of the challenges ahead in an interview with Miguel Calzada for CTN TV last week. He spoke from the perspective of the largest tourism company in the Dominican Republic. Under the ALG umbrella, AMResorts is the largest hotel operator in the country and its affiliate …

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Editor’s thoughts… With nothing certain about Covid-19, the world’s a lab in progress. As the tourism industry has gotten clearance to reopen in the Dominican Republic on 3 July (subject to change), there is time to learn from what is happening abroad. People come to the DR for beaches, right? The global experiment of beaches …

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Pending government approval and the green light to airports to reopen, Iberia Airlines is accepting bookings for flights in July to the Dominican Republic. The first commercial scheduled flight is for 4 July from Barajas International Airport in Madrid to Las Americas International Airport in Santo Domingo. The outbound flights will be Saturday and Monday, …

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What’s the government waiting for? The Medina administration has published 1 July as the restart date for hotel and airport operations. Yet, the government has yet to issue the official clearance for airports and airlines to resume commercial operations. In a conversation with tourism industry writers in the Dominican Republic, Frank Rainieri, president of Puntacana …

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