The DR expects more than 220,000 tourists this month

Dominican tourism continues its recovery trend and the arrival of more than 220,000 non-resident passengers is expected this month, representing a 35% growth compared to February of this year.

The Minister of Tourism, David Collado, highlighted the sustained recovery of the industry, thanks to the joint efforts of the public-private sectors.

“In a very favorable scenario, and imitating the trend of arrivals of last December, the Dominican Republic would be receiving this month, more than 268 thousand non-residents with foreign passports (for a monthly variation of 60%). Under the assumptions of a more moderate recovery, the country would exceed 199 thousand non-resident foreign passport passengers (19% above the influx of February 2021),” said the official.

Collado said that in the first days of March there are signs of important signs of recovery, led mainly by the airports of Santo Domingo and Punta Cana, with a monthly growth of more than 30% and more than 49 thousand arrivals of non-resident foreigners.

International flight arrivals for the first six days of March 2021 show a monthly growth of 22% over the record of the first days of the previous month, with a flight occupancy of 52%, higher than that seen in the average of the last 40 days. The upturn in Dominican flights has been led mainly by tourists coming from U.S. cities.

Room bookings per night are above 2020 records, especially in the Punta Cana area, where these transactions returned to pre-pandemic levels (with a particular boom in bookings made less than 14 days prior to the stay).

Improved health indicators in the United States suggest that the pace of recovery already observed in tourism will continue throughout the month. With the start of the vaccination process, new infections decreased to the levels prior to the second great wave.

New cases dropped from more than 6% of the population to less than 2% at the beginning of March.

On the other hand, together with the reduction of Covid-19 infection cases and the Easter holiday (which begins on March 28), more than 220,000 non-resident passengers with foreign passports are expected for March 2021, exceeding the February 2021 record by 35%.

Thus, more than 20 thousand hotel rooms will be occupied in the last week of the month. By the end of the current month, occupied rooms would exceed those recorded in December 2020, reaching open occupancy rates of 49.3% and extended occupancy rates of 33.1%.

Similarly, maintaining the current trend, in February 2021 an average of 350 rooms were added weekly, and similar to what happened in December 2020, Dominican hotels are expected to end the month of March with more than 42,000 rooms available (for an availability rate of 67%).

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