Closure due to remodeling of the cable car in Puerto Plata affects tourist activities

Puerto Plata — With an abundance of scenic mountains, valleys, and solitary beaches, the north coast of the DR is an important tourist attraction and a haven for many expatriate communities.
The seven-month paralysis of the Puerto Plata Cable Car’s activities generates uncertainties among service managers and tour operators, who are sensitively affected in the middle of the high season of tourism on the North Coast.

The Ministry of Tourism (Mitur) instructed the attraction to be closed to expand it, modernize it, install new equipment, and include more technical, administrative, and office personnel. Still, time has passed, and there are no signs that these works are beginning.

The situation affects taxi drivers, tour operators, tourism promotion agencies, official guides, tour vendors, restaurant owners, and street vendors who operate on the main floor of Isabel de Torres Hill. These businesses have seen their incomes fall due to the services they provide to visitors.

According to Hoy, Puerto Plata del Mitur authorities have assessed that many foreign visitors who arrive on cruise ships use cable car services.

Representative organizations of the enclave, including the Puerto Plata Destination Tourism Cluster (CTDPP), the Hotel Associations of Playa Dorada and the North zone, and the Chamber of Commerce and Production, called on the authorities of the portfolio to define the destination of the works, which do not begin, in the cable car facilities and thus avoid further losses to the sectors.

It is recalled that the Minister of Tourism, David Collado, assured that the Government is taking measures to strengthen tourism infrastructures so that it will invest US$20 million in the modernization of the attraction.