The Web stokes unfair competition: hoteliers

Santo Domingo.- The rise in rental rooms or apartments to foreigners through Web platforms although it offers other alternatives to tourists, creates unfair competition with the hotel sector.

Dominican Republic National Hotels and Tourism Association (Asonahores) president Paola Rainieri suggests that the authorities establish regulatory mechanisms that allow healthy competition and guarantees quality and safety for visitors.

“This accommodation provided by digital platforms is undoubtedly a new model of accommodation and a very real and even unfair competition for the traditional formal hotel sector,” she said, quoted by Listin Diario.

Rainieri adds: the model came to stay but has to be regulated to offer the same security guarantees and international standards that are offered in the hotel sector.

She notes that the sector generates direct and indirect jobs, pays high tax rates, invests in staff education and has national and international certifications to guarantee safety and well-being to visitors.