A normal day in the last week of February 2020. We visit some guests who want to book a tour, check if other guests are in the tours and then we start working on our social media. We did read in the news that Covid-19 affected some countries in Europe, but Europe a 10 hour flight from the island. We did not worry about that.
1 March 2020
Covid 19 hit our island, the topic of the day. We heard about 2 tourists who got sick and got directly in isolation, but now there was the first local transmission.
A woman with the Italian and Dominican nationality returned in the last week of February back in Dominican from a vacation in Italy. She tested positive but did not go in self-isolation. She infected in a few days many people.
In just a few days airlines from all over the world, sent empty planes to bring back home all tourists.
By mid-March the tourist areas looked like ghost towns and totally empty beaches, beautiful but very strange. In that moment we were still positive, thinking it would be over soon and we would return to business as usual.
But it got May, June, July and airports remain closed. So many families were effected by the lack of tourism. Not only the hotel staff, the bus- and taxi drivers, the airport employees, the tour sellers, the souvenir sellers, but also the people who work in the factories to make the souvenirs, the people who prepare the food products for the hotels, the farmers that produce the food, the truckdrivers that bring the goods, the list is endless.
More then 1 year later Covid-19 still rules the world and nothing is like it was in 2019.
Tourism is starting up slowly with people from United States, South America and some from Europe.
Dominican Republic is ready it still is a great country to visit and the people stay optimistic, they keep smiling and hoping to see you all soon back on this beautiful island.
