The Discover Dominica Authority (DDA) revealed in a recent media chat that the country experienced a 70% decline in stay-over-arrivals of visitors to the island. DDA’s marketing executive, Samantha Letang, attributed the loss in tourism potentials to the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Letang said the tourist and revenue decline occurred from January to September 2020, and that the same situation played out as well from January to September 2019. She lamented that several tourism players have been impacted negatively by the pandemic to the point that many shut down their services while others retrenched their employees because of their inability to pay them.
The marketing executive disclosed the Ministry of Tourism has partnered with the Ministry of Health and the Dominica Hotel and Tourism Association (DHTA) to revive the ailing industry again. According to her, the DDA has initiated several programmes to rescuscitate the tourism and hospitality sector and these include the CARICOM Travel Bubble in late August and the Safe in Nature in September.
Letang said the tourism products are targeted at bringing Dominica to visitors rather than having them come to Dominica, so as to ensure the safety and health of visitors and tourists in the country.
“It guarantees that Dominica continues to focus on the safety of our local residents and of course our visitors while doing all we can to bring the essence of the nature island to them,” she said. “We had already begun training for taxi operators and are continuing to educate and inform all our service providers.”
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