The president of the Association of Hotels and Tourism of the Dominican Republic (ASONAHORES), Rafael Blanco, expressed his satisfaction with the rebound that the tourism sector is having in the country.
“We are very excited with the evolution of the sector in recent months. In fact the month of July is going to become the month with the highest arrival of foreign tourists, exceeding 400 thousand,” he revealed.
He said that we are already seeing how the occupancy rate at the national level is around 50% led by Bayahibe, Punta Cana and Santo Domingo.
“But what we are seeing is how the international market feels confident to visit our country and obviously this is a product of the effective measures against the pandemic on the part of the official sector as well as all the protocols that we have managed to implement in the private sector,” said Blanco.
He emphasized that as a country we have been recognized by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) as a world example of how tourism can be managed in times of pandemic.
He added that each month sees an increase in tourist arrivals, with more than 400 thousand visits in the month of June 2021, which represents a recovery of 75 percent of arrivals to June 2019, and an approximate occupancy rate of 57 percent nationally.
The Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (BCRD) indicated this week that the behavior of the tourism sector, which was impacted by effects of the Covid-19 crisis, exhibits a firm trend towards recovery, which has been appreciated with the arrival of non-resident passengers to the country.
The entity highlighted that the tourism industry reached the figure of 390,948 non-resident visitors in May 2021, that is, a proportion of 74.1% with respect to the 527,732 non-resident passengers received prior to the pandemic, in the same month of 2019.
In general terms, the financial institution headed by Héctor Valdez Albizu, maintains that the Dominican economy continues to show signs of improvement and in May registered a growth of 21.2 percent according to official data.
Overall, between January and May the expansion was 13.4%.
The Central Bank takes it as a given that if the recovery trajectory exhibited continues, the economy will end 2021 with a growth of between 8.0% and 9.0%, conservatively, and with an upward bias, according to the models and the forecasting system.
