The Dominican Republic received 476,575 tourists in August, which represents 96% of the number of travelers arriving in the country in the same month of 2019, Tourism Minister David Collado announced on Wednesday.
This number represents more than three times the number of tourists who arrived in the country in August 2020, a time when the borders had just reopened, which were closed at the beginning of the pandemic.
Between January and August, 2.9 million tourists have arrived in the country, which means “almost doubling” the data for the same period of 2020, but it is 37% lower than the data for 2019.
The improvement in August is mainly supported by the recovery of European source markets, such as Spain (14% more tourists than in July), France (22%), and Germany (21%), which is due to the easing of restrictions on traveling from those countries.
Hotel occupancy in August reached 64.6%, with 85.2% of the hotels in operation; reaching 77% occupancy in Punta Cana, the country’s main tourist pole.
The Ministry of Tourism projects a strong increase in flight and hotel bookings in the last quarter, which may lead to the end of the year with 4.8 million tourists, a figure that “never” could be “imagined” would be reached in 2021, in the words of the minister.
The best month to be expected is December, in the high season, when flight bookings are already 22% higher than the data for the same month in 2019.
Collado stressed that two major source countries such as Canada and Russia have just allowed foreign travel, so it is projected that they will increase their participation in tourism on Dominican beaches.
Source:
El Dinero
