Photo: ©konstanttin/123RF

By Frank Martin

Dominican Republic and Costa Rica seems to have found suitable keys for its respective PostCOVID-19 openings.

In those two-tourism industry depending countries   already started an economy restoration process.

Tourism statistics in both nations indicate that they really started on the road to recovery before vaccine immunization did the miracle.

The Costa Rican Tourism Institute disclosed that during the first semester of 2021 the small Central American country received 497,449 foreign vacationers despite the fact that a large part of the immunizing vaccines was not yet ready.

Dominican Republic Ministry of Tourism also stated this July that the sector recovered 80% of visitors number received before the pandemic.

This success is due to 468,367 tourist’s arrivals last June.

Neither Costa Rica nor the Dominican Republic were disaster exceptions caused by COVID-19 in world travel last year.

In 2020 national economies closures were intense in the worst period of the global pandemic when a vast majority of international destinations closed their doors simply because customers stopped arriving.

Costa Rican experts assured then that a combination of factors such active airlines, a good strategy with elements of health security and cautious promotion were already in the program.

They also mentioned a main factor gaining ground against the new coronavirus: not giving up.

Another positive factor mentioned in both cases is the high level of service quality, especially in the private sector.

Dominicans’ success secrets are not very different. They added undeniable benefits at open air of beautiful national beaches that attracted in 2019 revenues of 7.400 million dollars to that nation.

Almost two million visitors visited Dominican Republic in the first six months of 2021.

Some Caribbean islands are also getting reopened, albeit with great caution and modesty because of outbreaks.

Although the epidemic does not recede rapidly Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Jamaica, Guyana and the Bahamas do not give up tourism plans already active under strong sanitary rules

In Trinidad and Tobago, the government announced a gradual reopening process in July.

Guyana has kept its borders open during the pandemic, but Suriname is still looking for its own path.

FM