Dominican tourism is now undergoing a new litmus test. Canada has just banned flights from Mexico and the Caribbean until April 30, and yesterday, mid-afternoon, France announced the closure of its borders with countries outside the European Union.
The flow of Canadian tourists is important to the Dominican Republic, but after the reopening after the close of the first quarter of the year when the first wave of the Covid-19 coronavirus surfaced, it has not recovered and not many Canadians arrived in the country.
French tourism is also important as it is long distances and the stay is longer and therefore greatly favors the country, especially the northern Dominican area.
Both closures have a negative effect on passenger flow. Four weekly flights arrived at Las Américas International Airport (AILA) (Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday). The airlines that flew into the country before Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau moved are Air Transat, Sunwing and Air Canada, according to data from Aerodom Siglo XXI.
The airline Air Canada flies through Punta Cana from the city of Montreal on a B787 flight and one from Air Transat on Saturday with the 320 plane. Dominican Civil Aviation (JAC) sources report that 40 to 45 arrived in the nationwide flights, currently.
In January of this year, 255,000 passengers entered the country. From Canada alone, 586,000 arrived in 2020, and the closure of the border will affect Puert of Plata and Samaná.
Hoteliers
Asked in this regard, Andrés Marranzini, executive vice president of the Dominican Association of Hotels and Tourism (Asonahores) explained that the impact here will be greater or less to the extent that the country can keep the virus under control and capacity and quality can show in his responses.
“The ability of diplomacy to act for governments will also have an impact,” said the hotel industry representative.
It will also depend on the ability of the tourism industry to forge alliances and managements with the groups and companies whose business is affected by the restrictions imposed in their country of origin.
It recognizes that travel restrictions harm the country’s tourism and income, but also negatively impact businesses in those countries that invest in hotels and services in the Dominican Republic and are middlemen and manage local product sales chains and provide transportation and other services.
So far, the PCR or antigen test is in effect in the United States and is perfectly manageable in the country, said Marranzini, who said quarantine is a possibility that has not yet been implemented and if it were to happen it would be fatal. for us. He said, however, that airlines, tourism companies and others should take steps to ensure that quarantine is not enforced.
DATA
Canada
A list of flights and passengers from Canada to the country indicates that 68 flights arrived in December 2020, and 68 were scheduled for January 2021 with 4,642 passengers. The total number of Canadian passengers arriving last December was 11,673. Total arrivals were 16,315 on 131 flights operated by Air Transat, Air Canada, Sunwing Airlines, West Jet, Air Canaada Rouge, Novsajet and Gama Aviation Limited.
Baja
In 2020, 185,932 arrived and in 2019 almost 500,000 arrived.