A survey just released yesterday belies your point, Samana 1. The survey just confirms what those of us in the tourism industry in the DR are thinking when we survey our empty hotel rooms and restaurants: that current external world events such as the Iraqi war, poor economies, sars and terrorism are seriously affecting the DR contrary to what our Minister of Tourism glowingly reports as 90% occupancies.
Although this report is related to US travel, with 50% of tourism in the DR now composed of Americans, it DOES affect us. I suspect that reports from many of the world's other nations would be the same. The story from the AP that appears today in many US newspapers is printed below.
Travel survey: war, economy keeps people from traveling overseas
Last updated: Apr 8, 10:41 PM
ORLANDO (AP) -- Nearly a third of people surveyed about travel plans are not interested in going overseas because of the weak economy and the war in Iraq, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Travel Industry Association of America.
The online poll of 1,200 U.S. residents found that 31 percent of those surveyed planned not to travel overseas because of those two factors. The poll, conducted March 20-25 by Greenfield Online, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
It was the first survey on how the war is affecting tourism conducted by the Travel Industry Association, which is planning three additional polls to gauge how travel sentiment changes as the war progresses.
"The trend is traveling shorter distances, being in control by driving one's car," said Betsy O'Rourke, the association's senior vice president of marketing.
Fifteen percent of all travel spending by U.S. residents is on travel outside the United States, said Suzanne Cook, senior vice president for research at TIA. In 2001, U.S. residents spent $67.8 billion on overseas travel, a 13 percent decline from 2000.
The survey showed that the economy more than the war caused travelers to change their vacation plans, whether they were traveling domestically or abroad. A third of those surveyed who had taken a trip in the previous year made changes to their travel plans because of the economy, while less than a quarter did so because of the war, according to the survey.
The survey showed that domestic travel, especially journeys by car, remained strong, although people were waiting to make their plans.
Showing a similar trend, AAA reported Thursday that customized online trip maps had jumped by 4,000 the previous week, indicating that interest in auto travel may be growing since the start of the war in Iraq.
Eighty-one percent of those surveyed by TIA said they planned to travel for vacation during the spring and summer. But about half of those people hadn't made any plans yet.
"They are waiting and waiting and waiting until closer to departure dates before they make their plans," O'Rourke said.
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