Asonahores highlights Puerto Plata’s attractions and its cruise ship boom

Puerto Plata – The Association of Hotels and Tourism (Asonahores) highlighted the tourism dynamism of Puerto Plata, a destination that the Ministry of Tourism (Mitur) promotes, especially at the Tourism Fair La Vitrina de ANATO 2024 in Bogota, Colombia.

For this reason, David Llibre affirmed that just as the DR slogan says, Puerto Plata also has it all by indicating that the province has all the tourist attractions to provide visitors with a unique and pleasurable experience.

“Puerto Plata is in a historic moment in tourism; we see the boom, the resurgence of this destination whose growth is basically due to the cruise industry since of the 2 million cruise passengers that the country received in 2023, 1.7 million came through Puerto Plata,” he said.

The president of Asonahores emphasized that the strategy implemented by the government and the private sector in Puerto Plata is already bearing fruit, according to Despertar Nacional.

In this sense, Llibre also highlighted the impulse that La Novia del Atlántico will receive with the Punta Bergantín project, which will give Puerto Plata a new impulse to revert the setback in the hotel sector that the province has experienced during the last 20 years.

He stressed that two recognized hotel brands will give the first kick-off for constructing two new hotels this year in Puerto Plata.

“We are talking about a hotel of the Hyatt Group and another of Meliá that will be built jointly with the Puntacana Group, both in Punta Bergantín. Puerto Plata needed new brands and rooms, and we are sure that with this impulse it will continue to grow stronger.”

Llibre expressed confidence that the Dominican Republic will reach by 2024 the goal set by the Minister of Tourism with the Colombian market of attracting 350,000 tourists, surpassing the 306,000 that arrived in 2023 from that South American nation.

“Colombia has become the third largest issuer of tourists to the Dominican Republic. We are talking about 5% of every tourist that enters the country comes from Colombia. We are talking about some three hundred and six thousand if we count only passengers by air of the 8 million 200 thousand that arrived in this 2023, were Colombians,” he said.