Dominican Government, Hoteliers Work to Halt Falling Numbers

The global crisis has affected the number of visitors who come to Dominican republic in such a manner that the authorities and private sector have been working together like never before, to find ways to counter the negative effects.

The vice president of the Hotels and Restaurants Association, Arturo Villanueva said the hoteliers are working closely with Tourism minister Francisco Javier Garcia in the designs of a national campaign to attract Dominicans, since many of them “travel all over the world yet they’ve never seen the beauty of the beaches at Barahona (southwest).”

He said the fall in the number of tourists hasn’t been as drastic only because of a growth in the amount of visitors from South American countries such as Brazil and Venezuela.

The hotelier, interviewed in a luncheon hosted by the business groups for journalists of the economy area, added that faced with the lower number of guests some hotels could close for several months during the summer low season.

As to the fall in the arrival of international tourists during the eight month period from July 2008 to February 2009, 145,373 fewer visitors came to the country, said the non-government organization Quisqueya Foundation.

The economists Frank Valenzuela and Hector Frias, president and executive director of the organization, said 2,533,229 foreign tourists visited the country in that period, compared with the 2,678, 602 in the period from July 2007 to February 2008.