US-to-Dominican Republic flight bookings rebounding after tourist deaths, report says
Flight bookings from the U.S. to the Dominican Republic have started rebounding after a spate of tourist deaths at the end of May and early June, according to new research.
Bookings between the U.S. and Dominican Republic for July and August dipped 84.4% as compared to the same time last year. Travel industry data firm ForwardKeys analyzed the number of bookings that passengers made between June 1 to July 2.
American Airlines spokeswoman Laura Masvidal told USA TODAY that the carrier is currently operating its full schedule of 120 weekly flights to the the four cities it serves: Santo Domingo (SDQ), Santiago (STI), Puerto Plata (POP) and Punta Cana (PUJ). USA TODAY has reached out to several other U.S. airlines for comment.
in late June, Delta Air Lines and JetBlue Airways announced they would be waiving change fees for travelers who did not wish to proceed with their Dominican Republic trips following the series of U.S. tourist deaths there.
Bookings began to drop in late May after Maryland couple Edward Nathaniel Holmes and Cynthia Day were found dead in their hotel room in the Dominican Republic and continued to fall as six more American deaths were reported over the course of the next month.
Since May, several other Americans have reported becoming severely ill while on vacation in the Dominican Republic, a Delaware woman claimed she was brutally attacked there in January and Boston Red Sox great David Ortiz was shot in Santo Domingo while visiting his homeland.
The bookings hit their lowest points around June 20, three days after New York resident Vittorio Caruso became the eighth U.S. citizen to die on the Caribbean island in a three-month period. Ticket sales began to rebound by June 22.
"I am greatly relieved for the Dominican Republic that the crisis in confidence appears to be abating and I am hopeful that it will be relatively short-lived, particularly if there are no more deaths and if the current FBI investigation establishes a clear cause of death in each case and none of the causes was sinister," Olivier Ponti, VP Insights at ForwardKeys, said in a statement.
Tourism minister Francisco Javier Garcia held a press conference last month to dispel concerns, stating, "The Dominican Republic is a safe country."
Garcia also said the confirmed deaths – nine including a Denver man, Khalid Adkins – are not out of the ordinary and that the number is actually lower than in some previous years. Garcia said that by this point in 2011 and 2015, 15 tourists had died in the Dominican Republic.
Contributing: Sara Moniuszko, Dawn Gilbertson
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: US-to-Dominican Republic flight bookings rebounding after tourist deaths, report says
