The president of Iberia, Spain’s flag carrier, Javier Sánchez Prieto praised the recovery of tourism in the Dominican Republic after the COVID-19 pandemic, which according to the World Tourism Organization is the number one country in the world in the recovery of the sector.
Sánchez Prieto indicated that the Dominican Republic opened to international traffic without limitations in July 2020 and has been one of the Latin American countries that has boosted tourism the most during the pandemic, for all this, it has become a destination of great interest and one of the most desired for any time of the year.
Interviewed by Moises Gonzalez Pena of the newspaper Despertar Nacional, in the framework of the Global Mobility Call held in the city of Madrid, Spain, the president of Iberia said that the Dominican Republic was an example for many countries and companies in the handling of the pandemic.
“We value very positively the right decision of the Dominican government, which has been able to reconcile the measures of prevention and health care with the utmost zeal along with those others aimed at promoting the recovery of this sector so vital to the country’s economy,” said the president of Iberia.
“Business relations are magnificent I believe that, although this is a lot to say, I think we share a common vision. During the pandemic, for us the Dominican Republic was also a mirror of what Iberia intended to do, which was to have the company in operation, to keep us open, to be able to combine security issues, in this case health security, with maintaining the levels of activity”.
Iberia’s president highlighted the importance of the Dominican market for the airline.
During the time the market was closed, we operated three repatriation flights.
The Dominican Republic was the first country in Latin America to receive vaccines against COVID (15 Feb 2021). The 110 kg shipment was transported by IAG Cargo from Mumbai to London on a British Airways flight and then from London to Madrid and from Madrid to Santo Domingo on Iberia flights.
The Dominican Republic has undoubtedly been the route on which Iberia has recovered its capacity most quickly, so we wanted to accompany this reactivation of demand with a greater supply.
“We are operating more than one daily frequency in the summer and our intention is to continue developing connectivity with the DR. For us, the Dominican Republic continues to be a very important market. We have never stopped operating.
It has been the Iberia route where we recovered our pre-covy capacity the fastest, in fact, in December 2020 we were already offering more capacity than in pre-pandemic and we have been gradually increasing the number of weekly frequencies.
This year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of our flights to Latin America and, in the case of the Dominican Republic, Iberia’s first flight dates back to 1967. This year we celebrate the 55th anniversary of our first flight to Santo Domingo, where we hope to continue flying for many more years, because Iberia is committed to this destination and so are its customers.
It is recalled that in January of this year the Dominican Government and Iberia renewed an agreement that aims to promote the Dominican Republic and improve the connectivity of the half-island with the more than 90 destinations that the Spanish airline offers in Spain and Europe.
These actions and the signing of the renewal of the agreement between the Minister of Tourism and María Jesús López-Solás, Iberia’s commercial, network development and alliances director, were witnessed by President Abinader.
The businessman highlighted the participation of the Dominican Republic in the International Tourism Fair in which our country was a partner country of the fair and the Dominican delegation was headed by President Luis Abinader and Tourism Minister David Collado.
“We are very honored that President Luis Abinader came to the inauguration of FITUR, having the Dominican Republic as a partner of the event (in addition to being the first country to repeat as a partner of the Fair). We have an excellent relationship with Minister David Collado, and we continue to collaborate”.
As we do every year, at FITUR 2022 we once again had the pleasure of renewing our promotional agreement for the entire year, in which we included new initiatives in which we have been working closely with the Ministry’s promotional team, relying not only on Iberia’s own media, but also on other partners and our commercial network. The result of these joint campaigns has yielded very good results in recent years and this is the line we want to continue working on.
Learn more: Iberia Airlines
Learn more: Economy in Dominican Republic
