Punta Cana, located on the east coast of the Dominican Republic, has turn out to be internationally renowned as a gorgeous tropical trip paradise with luxurious, eco-chic, worth-priced, accommodations. In truth, Punta Cana has now grow to be the #1 tourist destination in the entire Caribbean — and this wonderful transformation has occurred more than just 28 years! This news has been reported in a lot of of the well-known travel magazines and travel websites. I want you to know that this stat is based on True information, not just marketing hype. The stats are gathered by the Caribbean Tourism Organization, a non-profit which keeps close tabs on 29 nations in the Caribbean Area.
Beneath, I will go over this information in more detail. My discussion will center around the information released in 2010 as the Caribbean Tourism Organization has not yet published the December stats for 2011 so there is not however a complete information set for that year. Nevertheless, if you study the data obtainable for the 1st 11 months of 2011, the overall trends stay the very same.
The Dominican Republic received more non-resident airport arrivals than any other nation in the Caribbean, easily beating out Cuba, the second most well-known tourist location. The following is a fast reference list for you to view the best 10 Caribbean destinations along with the total quantity reported for non-resident airport arrivals_
1. Dominican Republic – four,124,543
2. Cuba – two,531,745
3. Cancun Mexico – 2,106,485
four. Jamaica – 1,921,678
5. Puerto Rico – 1,369,814
6. The Bahamas – 1,368,053
7. Aruba – 825,451
8. The US Virgin Islands – 691,194
9. Martinique – 476,492
10. St. Maartin – 443,136
Now, let’s break these stats down even a lot more into European travel, US American travel, and Canadian travel. Europeans pick the Dominican Republic overwhelmingly as their #1 favourite Caribbean trip spot. Their next preferred is Cuba. The United States has a close four way race between Cancun Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. Cancun edges out the other 3 but the Dominican Republic gained 6.eight% in just 1 year and this trend is continuing. Punta Cana is now the #1 destination within the Dominican Republic for US Americans, replacing Puerto Plata on the north coast, which used to be #1. Canadians also appear to really like the Dominican Republic, especially Punta Cana, deciding on it as their second favored Caribbean getaway spot following Cuba. Please note that United States residents are not allowed to travel to Cuba.
So, with this convincing data in mind, let me ask_
How did Punta Cana get so well-liked_
With numerous common tourist destinations, it would be challenging to pin-point 1 specific issue that made the region soar in reputation. Not so with Punta Cana. On the Punta Cana coast, which stretches for about 39 miles from Bavaro in the north to Cap Cana in the south, there is a single effortlessly identifiable occasion that took spot in 1984 that changed actually every little thing and fully transformed this area into the mega-common tourist destination it is nowadays.
Do I have your curiosity piqued but_ Maintain reading…
Punta Cana is completely gorgeous. It provides expansive silky white sandy beaches with a warm sparkling blue sea lapping along its shoreline. It is so inviting it calls you in – some say it even seduces you. When you add to that the thick grove of coconut palm trees swaying in the tropical breeze along the complete coast in this region, you have the iconic Caribbean paradise observed on post-cards sent to those back property who weren’t fortunate enough to go on the trip but who will surely wish they had.
Even so, just before 1984 handful of folks actually knew about this tropical gem. It remained largely undiscovered by most planet travelers till the construction of the Punta Cana International Airport (PUJ). In Spanish, the official language of the Dominican Republic, this international airport is called, Aeropuerto Internacional de Punta Cana.
You see, no matter how spectacular a place is, if you have no convenient and reasonably priced way to reach the region, it won’t be noticed by a lot of individuals. Prior to the Punta Cana International Airport was built, the tiny air strip that had been built in 1971 could not manage the big size jet planes. Moreover, in order to get there from another nation, you had to fly into Santa Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, and then endure a four hour bumpy bus or taxi ride to Punta Cana. The unpaved road was narrow and full of gigantic potholes. The road would also wash out in heavy rains and motorized automobiles were sometimes held up by horse targeted traffic, producing the pace miserable for weary travelers wanting to get to their hotel.
The air traffic of the PUJ has grown by leaps and bounds and is on course this year (2012) to serve far more than 4 million folks! It now receives far a lot more traffic than the next busiest airport in the capital of Santo Dominigo. There is no other privately funded airport in the world that even comes close to this degree of company good results.
Men and women come to Punta Cana from all over the globe now. International airlines that serve the Punta Cana Airport are Air Canada, AirTran, American Airlines, British Airways, Continental, Delta, JetBlue, KLM, Spirit, United, US Airways, and Westjet. USA 300, not too long ago defunct (as of January 30, 2012), was established by Apple Vacations and served PUJ for a long time as nicely. Canadian charter airlines to the Punta Cana Airport contain Air Transat, Sunwig, Skyservice, and Canjet. They run for the duration of the cold bleak Canadian winters.
So, an area that began with quite humble beginnings about 4 decades ago, now generally gives beds for more than 70,000 folks at a single time. Punta Cana has undoubtedly established itself as one particular of the prime locations planet travelers feel of going. And… there’s no finish in sight for the growth of this region. The about 39 mile Punta Cana coast has essentially been a gold rush for the major hotel corporations, specially the Spanish owned ones, given that the region was opened up by the international airport. Classy high rise resorts, completely sited to take benefit of the view, have sprung up nearly overnight. The infrastructure has also vastly improved as funds for big projects has poured in.
The Europeans and the Canadians seemed to have found Punta Cana just before the US Americans did. Nevertheless, over the last 10-15 years, the US Americans have been quickly catching up. In fact, this has occurred at such a swift rate, complete resorts have been constructed to cater especially to the US Americans as the customs of the Europeans and the Americans occasionally clash a bit within the resorts, although some US Americans prefer the European ambiance.
US Americans and Canadians in the Eastern Regular Time Zone can depart on a direct flight in the morning and arrive in Punta Cana by mid-day with no jet lag as the time zones are the very same, except for the duration of daylight savings time when it is only 1 hour diverse. Even a trip from the west coast of the United States or Canada is a comparatively straightforward trip when you evaluate it to other equally exotic destinations.
The Punta Cana Airport also fits in nicely with the Dominican landscape and tends to make a nice first impression when tourists enter the nation. It has an open-air design and style with a picturesque thatched roof made of palm fronds. All of the components utilized to build the airport had been brought in from local sources like palm, regional wood, and native coral. This was a very intentional work by Frank Rainieri and the other investors in Grupo Punta Cana who privately funded the airport. Considering that they were below-funded for a project of this magnitude, Frank Rainieri approached a Dominican architecture main at Pratt University. He agreed to do it at no charge to establish a name for himself. He has given that grow to be fairly renowned and has been paid nicely for other projects in the Dominican Republic.
Initially, Grupo Punta Cana attempted to get the Dominican Republic government to fund, or at least partially fund, the creating of the international airport but soon after eight years they located they had to fund it privately entirely on their own. They must be credited for their vision and persistence since a privately funded airport of this magnitude had never been constructed just before. They did have the a lot required approval and cooperation of the Dominican Republic government even though or the project would have never gotten off the ground.
So, there you have it. The tourism accomplishment of the Punta Cana coast hinged on one thing_ developing an international airport capable of giving tourists straightforward and inexpensive access to this stunning paradise. It took amazing vision and perseverance.
