The Dominican Republic in Own Juice

[IMG=21006-6838]Several changes were adopted to the contracts of Russian tour operators – consolidators of flights to the Dominican Republic - with the main Airline operating flights to the destination – Transaero, travel market experts said. CAPITAL TOUR, Bureau South Cross, Big Tour and TEZ TOUR takre blocks on the only direct flight from Moscow to Punta Cana. As last year the flight program is planned to be launched on October 25th. The flights will be operated by Boeing – 747 once in ten days until May 13th. Nevertheless, at the moment tour operators can not transfer seats to other travel market players. According to unaccredited information the initiative belong to the tour operators of the Dominican pool themselves as they made a decision to avoid sales on space available basis thus providing maximum concentration of tourist flow. Furthermore, the tour operators are not concerned about the increased risks in off-season time. Marina Borisovskaya, Sales Director of Bureau South Cross, commented: ‘we allocated very small percentage our quota to free sales. I do not anticipate any problems. Besides, we have already sold more than half tickets for the nearest flights’. Nikolay Chabrov, Director of the Caribbean Department of CAPITAL TOUR, said in the interview to a BANKO correspondent: ‘we believe that the initiative will not affect our work. It is one more step to the market stabilization’. Meanwhile, other tour operators comment on the situation without enthusiasm. Vladimir Romanov, General Director of Caribbean Club, pointed out: ‘we will see how the situation will develop considering different level of the companies involved. Some will cope, some – will not. According to him there are alternative flights to the Dominican Republic – scheduled flights of Air France and Lufthansa. However, they are around $300 more expensive than Transaero flights to the destination.