The second day of the ITB Berlin, the most important tourism fair in the world and in which only tourism professionals participate after three years of closure due to the pandemic, showed a waste of optimism for the travel industry and business agents.
In addition to the agreement with Swiss Edelweiss, the Minister of Tourism, David Collado, signed an agreement with the Cóndor airline that ensures its seven weekly flights to Punta Cana, Santo Domingo and Puerto Plata, in the summer, and fills the gap of Air France with the possibility of another additional route also for the summer. Cóndor will now do 10 routes in winter. The agreement with Cóndor will guarantee eight flights for the summer.
The agreement was signed by Minister Collado and Bernd Bechtel, director of Condor Airport Relations, as part of the efforts to achieve more flights and that the official develops with businessmen at the ITB Berlin. “This is very good news for the country, for which we appreciate this support from Cóndor,” said Collado, after signing the agreement with the German airline at the country’s stand, due to the fact that Mitur’s participation in international trade fairs tourism are focused on attracting more long-distance flights to the Dominican destination.
Collado reported that other steps are being taken to guarantee more flights from Europe in the summer and valued the facilities of the Punta Cana airport so that the agreement with Cóndor is maintained.
The agreement includes the extension for one year of the agreement of the Ministry of Tourism and Condor. The director of Airport Relations of Cóndor, Bechtel, said that this collaboration is part of the commitment that Cóndor has for more than 30 years so that connectivity with the Dominican Republic is maintained.
Preliminary
“We are happy after the agreement with Cóndor,” said Collado, because together with other airlines it is guaranteed to compensate and cover the departure of Air France from some routes in which it brought some 85,000 tourists, since the idea is to exceed 200,000 foreigners in 2023 and the arrival of 194,000 tourists has already been registered, when speaking with journalists who cover the ITB Berlin fair.
Preliminarily, the minister indicated that today data on the agreements with tour operators will be offered and that the day has been extremely efficient and has left Grupo Puntacana and Asonahores happy.
The Minister of Tourism revealed that Asonahores informed him that the majority of the 26 exhibitors present define the ITB as an efficient volume fair and that it has allowed them to close deals.
The head of the Mitur explained that in the world of aviation there is a shortage of aircraft and what many airlines have done is have them built and have not succeeded, for which reason an additional effort has been made like the current one that will allow the arrival of an airplane large of 400 passengers.
“We are talking about 1,200 passengers for six months. We are compensating about 7,000 passengers and if the other seven weekly flights are calculated, there are 2,200 weekly, which would be more than 8,000 per month and about 50,000 in the six summer months,” Collado explained. He specified that European tourism falls in summer (June to October), while winter begins on November 1, which has led them to seek that guarantee to cover the low season stage that runs from June to October.
“Only with Cóndor we are guaranteeing some 50,000 tourists in six months,” he stressed.
