How did Punta Cana become so popular?

Punta Cana, located on the east coast of the Dominican Republic, has become internationally recognized as a beautiful tropical vacation paradise with luxurious, eco-chic and affordable accommodations. In fact, Punta Cana has become the number one tourist destination in the entire Caribbean, and this amazing transformation has occurred in just 28 years! This news has been reported in many of the popular travel magazines and travel websites. I want you to know that this statistic is based on REAL data, not just advertising. The statistics are compiled by the Caribbean Tourism Organization, a non-profit organization that closely tracks 29 countries in the Caribbean Region.

Next, I will discuss this data in more detail. My discussion will focus on the data released in 2010, as the Caribbean Tourism Organization has yet to release the December statistics for 2011, so there is no complete data set for that year yet. However, if you study the data available for the first 11 months of 2011, the overall trends remain the same.

The Dominican Republic received more airport arrivals from non-residents than any other Caribbean country, easily surpassing Cuba, the second most popular tourist destination. The following is a quick reference list so you can see the top 10 Caribbean destinations along with the total reported number of non-resident airport arrivals:

1. Dominican Republic – 4,124,543

2. Cuba – 2,531,745

3. Cancun Mexico: 2,106,485

4. Jamaica: 1,921,678

5. Puerto Rico – 1,369,814

6. The Bahamas: 1,368,053

7. Aruba: 825,451

8. United States Virgin Islands: 691,194

9. Martinique – 476 492

10. St. Maartin – 443,136

Now, let’s take a closer look at these statistics on travel across Europe, travel across the United States, and Canada. Europeans overwhelmingly choose the Dominican Republic as their favorite vacation spot in the Caribbean. His next favorite is Cuba. The United States has a closed 4-way race between Cancun Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Cancun beats the other 3, but the Dominican Republic gained 6.8% in just one year and this trend continues. Punta Cana is now the number one destination within the Dominican Republic for Americans, replacing Puerto Plata on the north coast, which used to be number one. Canadians also seem to like the Dominican Republic a lot, especially Punta Cana, and chose it as their second favorite vacation spot in the Caribbean after Cuba. Please note that residents of the United States cannot travel to Cuba.

So, with this compelling data in mind, let me ask:

How did Punta Cana become so popular?

With many popular tourist destinations, it would be difficult to pinpoint one specific thing that made the area soar in popularity. Not so with Punta Cana. On the coast of Punta Cana, which stretches for approximately 39 miles from Bavaro in the north to Cap Cana in the south, there is an easily identifiable event that took place in 1984 that literally changed everything and transformed it into complete to this region in the mega-popular tourist area. destination is today.

Have I already piqued your curiosity? Keep reading …

Punta Cana is absolutely beautiful. It offers long beaches of silky white sand with a warm bright blue sea that bathes its coastline. It is so attractive that it calls you, some say it even “seduces” you. When you add to that the thick grove of coconut trees swaying in the tropical breeze along the entire coast of this region, you have the iconic Caribbean paradise seen on postcards sent to those at home who were not lucky enough to continue. the trip, but you surely wish you had.

However, before 1984 few people really knew about this tropical gem. It remained largely undiscovered by most world travelers until the construction of the Punta Cana International Airport (PUJ). In Spanish, the official language of the Dominican Republic, this international airport is called “Punta Cana International Airport”.

You see, no matter how spectacular a place is, if you don’t have a convenient and reasonably priced way to get to the area, it won’t be seen by many people. Before the Punta Cana International Airport was built, the small runway that had been built in 1971 could not support large jet aircraft. Also, to get from another country, I had to fly to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, and then endure a 4-hour bus or taxi ride to Punta Cana. The unpaved road was narrow and full of giant potholes. . The road was also flooded with heavy rain and motorized vehicles were sometimes stopped by horse traffic, making the pace miserable for weary travelers who wanted to get to their hotel.

PUJ air traffic has grown by leaps and bounds and this year (2012) is on track to serve over 4 million people! It now receives much more traffic than the next busiest airport in the capital, Santo Dominigo. There is no other privately funded airport in the world that comes close to this degree of business success.

Now people come from all over the world to Punta Cana. The international airlines that operate at the Punta Cana airport are Air Canada, AirTran, American Airlines, British Airways, Continental, Delta, JetBlue, KLM, Spirit, United, US Airways and Westjet . The recently defunct USA 300 (as of Jan 30, 2012) was established by Apple Vacations and also served PUJ for a long time. Canadian charter airlines to Punta Cana airport include Air Transat, Sunwig, Skyservice, and Canjet. They run during cold Canadian winters.

So an area that started with very humble beginnings about 4 decades ago now commonly provides beds for over 70,000 people at a time. Punta Cana has definitely established itself as one of the best places for world travelers to go. And … there is no end in sight for the growth of this area. Punta Cana’s roughly 39-mile coastline has essentially been a “gold rush” for major hotel corporations, especially Spanish-owned ones, since the area’s international airport opened. Classy high-rise resorts, perfectly positioned to take advantage of the view, have sprung up almost overnight. Infrastructure has also vastly improved as funds have been poured in for large projects.

Europeans and Canadians seemed to have “discovered” Punta Cana before the Americans. Yet over the past 10-15 years, Americans have caught up quickly. In fact, this has happened at such a rapid rate that entire resorts have been built to specifically cater to American Americans, as the customs of Europeans and Americans sometimes clash a bit within the resorts, though some Americans prefer the European environment.

Americans and Canadians in the Eastern Standard Time Zone can depart on a direct flight in the morning and arrive in Punta Cana at noon with no jet lag, as the time zones are the same except during daylight saving time when it is only one. . different time. Even a trip from the west coast of the United States or Canada is a relatively easy trip compared to other equally exotic destinations.

The Punta Cana Airport also fits in very well with the Dominican landscape and makes a good first impression when tourists enter the country. It has an open-air design with a picturesque thatched roof made from palm fronds. All the materials used to build the airport were brought in from local sources, including palm, local wood, and native coral. This was a very intentional effort by Frank Rainieri and the other Punta Cana Group investors who financed the airport privately. Since they did not have sufficient funds for a project of this magnitude, Frank Rainieri reached out to a Dominican architecture student at Pratt University. He agreed to do it free of charge to establish a name for himself. Since then he has become quite famous and has been well paid for other projects in the Dominican Republic.

Originally, Grupo Punta Cana tried to get the government of the Dominican Republic to finance, or at least partially finance, the construction of the international airport, but after 8 years they realized that they had to finance it privately and on their own. Their vision and perseverance must be recognized because never before has an airport of this magnitude been built privately financed. However, they had much-needed approval and cooperation from the government of the Dominican Republic or the project would never have taken off.

So there you have it. The tourist success of the Punta Cana coast depended on one thing: the construction of an international airport capable of providing tourists with easy and affordable access to this beautiful paradise. It took incredible vision and perseverance.