First Trip - Spoiled by Street Sellers

[talbot]

We have just returned from our first trip to the DR.

We stayed on the North Coast in one of the Playa Dorada hotels which was fine but we spent most of our days outside the hotel seeing as much of the north of the island as possible.

You have a beautiful island with lots to offer tourists. However, our holiday was spolied by the incessant pestering of street and beach vendors.

I know these guys are trying to make a living but it gets too much! How many times and in how many ways do you have to say no before these guys leave you alone? And in many cases walking away doesnt help - they either follow you or grab your arm.

Sosua was probably the worst for this - constantly stopped in the street, on the beach, accosted in bars and restaurants etc. Cabarete almost as bad and even around Playa Dorada itself we were stopped but less so.

We even had occasions were we had got into a taxi, agreed the fare and were about to pull away when guys stopped our taxi to sell us other taxi or tour guide firms. Whats that all about?

We had read these boards before we went and there were many messages that a firm no thanks would do the trick. In some cases it did - but be warned first timers that in an equal number of cases it doesnt work.
We loved the island guys - but wont be back - it was too much for us and spoiled our holiday. I dont want to be physically or verbally accosted every time i walk around a place. Not my idea of a relaxing time.No wonder most of the AI guest stay in their hotels.

[yasmin]

One advice: don't plan any other holiday to Tunesia, Turky, Marocco, Egypt or any other country where the local people are poor and try to make a living by selling things to the (rich) tourists.

[badpiece33]

I'm gonna miss you guys!!!! But while I got your attention come into my store I got the best prices on DR1
Badpiece

[Hlywud]

Wearing those infamous AI bracelets, without them you can say No gracias, no tourista.
Also your pasty white skin is a dead giveaway.

[ricktoronto]

Originally Posted by talbot

I dont want to be physically or verbally accosted every time i walk around a place. Not my idea of a relaxing time.No wonder most of the AI guest stay in their hotels.

Get some balls and tell them to **** off. They know when you mean it. You better stick to holidays inside AI's only or in maybe Dubuque or Peoria because the developing world has beggars and touts everywhere, and you just have to live with it. In the DR even the customs guys are panhandlers.

[Hillbilly]

And, I have to admit that my initial impression was: "My aren't we touchy?"

I am sorry that you didn't read all of the advice: make those darn bracelets so loose you can take them off!! Dress like normal people: slacks shoes shirts.

And let it be known that if you had ventured to Santiago, you would have enjoyed a rather peaceful day of walking the busy streets, without hindrence or molestations.

Pity. Of course you can always go to Punta Cana and stay cooped up in an AI over there. There isn't much to see there anyway.

Oh yes, I do have a question: Where are you from? Must be English or UK??
You really do come off like a twit, you know.


HB

[laurapasinifan]

I can second the original post and a few follow ups. I had a guy working me hard on the island off Samana....he really didnt have anything that stirred interest. But I let my girl make her own decisions on what she wanted and if she wanted anything...We joked and seemed to get along fine as he kept dropping his rediculous prices... from 1200 pesos to 400 in 15 minutes....... I went to the bathroom and left her to deal with him, he was done and tried to hit me up on my way back to the chairs, but i said if she didnt buy anything then she didnt want anything.... when i got back , she was upset... the guy basically callled her a whore, because she didnt buy anything, and she was with an american. that was the third time that day the native animals let their trash tounge loose, towards her because she was with me. man things were gonna get ugly fast...but I kept my cool. I ddnt have my wallet when I went to the bathroom, and the young lady there who "sold" the toilet paper for the lid----less toilets!!!!!!!!!!!! was quiet and polite.. and pointed to the paper next to the bowl of 10 peso bills and change... I told her I didnt have my wallet and would come back to give her a tip...I got the look she didnt believe me. Sooooooooo on my way back with wallet in hand the jerk who idssed my girl has a ballllllllzzzzz to come up thinking I am gonna buy something.... I told him your an azzhole and Im giving the lady at the tiolet his 400 pesos....cause it aint about the stupid money....its about being rude...... But on a side note.....I went to Sosua beach 5 times in the last 2 trips and all the walking vendors took my no thanks great and right away....no problem at all there...even the shop vendors didnt give more than a few come on , "please check out my shop"... and none mouhted off about my girl.. although one offered to trade 2 of his girlfreinds for mine. That was back in June and i told him, no thanks and that i was still working at securing up my Novio status, !!!!!!!!!!! I will say that the Sosua shops really really try to rip you off..... they always start at 5 times what they will eventually take.........As far as Santiago... its a great place to shop...lots of stores close, no pressure, lots and lots of women...you want to see 100s of great looking women spend 3 hours walkign those streets in and out of shops, and you will be numb by they amount of beautiful women you see.....in every class.........bob

[Tamborista]

Bring your own Charmin to the beach next time!

[joecanada]

This thread, more than any other, illustrates the sort of attitude that contributes to the fact that the small-town tourism model is struggling in the face of mega ai destinations.

An actual visitor comes on the board and posts why it is he won't be coming back and so far all the responses are about why he's in the wrong.

I know this should be pretty basic stuff, but travellers have a choice in where they vacation and spend their dollars. If you want travellers to come to towns like sosua, cabarete and the like instead of just to the ai-complex-destinations like punta cana (or worse, the ai-complex-destinations of Cuba, Mexico, Jamaica etc) you have to make the destination attractive to the tourists, not the tourist attractive to the destination.

This idea that everyone should be able to do whatever they want, sell whatever they want and in whatever manner they want without regard for the long-term effect this has on the image of the destination (and by logical extension, the marketability of the destination) is short-sighted.

Many business owners in Sosua, for example, are concerned about the lack of tourists going out for dinner, buying in their shops, etc and I don't blame them a bit. But if we want a vibrant local economy outside the ai's, we have to present an environment wherin our guests can feel comfortable walking around, not blame our guests for being too touchy about being approached by vendors, timeshare salesmen, shoeshine boys, hookers, beggers etc.

If visitors really wanted to be constantly pestered by sales people, shoe shine boys, hookers, and the like, then why isn't that a service offered in the larger hotels? One would think that the evil empire of AI's would have clued in to the fact that there's so much money to be made out of the tourists this way and hired droves of vendors, shoeshine boys, braid ladies etc to wander around the pools. Maybe they don't do it because they realize it will kill their business within a year. If it doesn't fly IN the resorts, what makes people think it's suddently so much better OFF the resorts?

Of course, in the short term, it's nice to think that the insistant vendors bothering the tourist so badly that the tourist won't come back is just feeding his family. But in the medium term, that's one less repeat tourist. In the long term, the destination gets a rep for this sort of thing and loses much of its appeal, leaving us stuck selling the destination based on low price instead of high-service and attracting the type of client who books ai and comes with $20 in his pocket for rum and cigarettes to bring home. How is this helping the local economy?

Of course, many will hold the opinion that we can attract in droves the sort of guests who will come year-round with tonnes of extra money for dining out, shopping in nice shops, etc while at the same time pestering them with constant sales pitches of one sort or another. My response to that is only to ask: how's that been working out so far?

No doubt many on this board will disagree with me on this point, and a few will even indulge in the sort of personal attacks that generally follow anyone who questions the status quo, and that's ok -- everyone has a right to their opinion (even when it's wrong) and I've long since given up trying to change minds on this or any forum.

To the original poster, thanks for your feedback, and I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your stay enough to come back. It's truly too bad, because this country and it's people have a lot to offer. Oftentimes when you're based in a strictly tourist location like Playa Dorada (or even Sosua sometimes) even when you get out it's hard to get out of the tourist mold. There's so much to see and experience in this country that goes on 'off the reservation', but it takes a bit of an adventurous spirit to find it.

[MrMike]

If you're to big a woos to deal with a pushy salesperson you shouldn't leave your house, let alone your country, and by no means the AI.

No wonder the terrorists were able to kill thousands of people armed only with boxcutters.

My country has truly become the land of the soft.