Dominican Port Authority, the Ministry of Tourism, and the company Puerto Plata Port Investment, which is the winner of the tender for the building of a cruise ship terminal in the Puerto Plata, announced during a press conference, that for November 2020, they will be receiving the first cruise vessels.
The press conference was led by Julio Almonte, Vice Minister of Tourism; Víctor Gomez Casanova, director of the Dominican Port Authority; and Mauricio Hamui of Puerto Plata Port Investment company and Taino Bay Cruise Terminal.
According to Gomez Casanova, cruise companies were already selling Puerto Plata as a cruise destination from November 2020, as they usually prepared and promoted their travel and reservation calendars 2 years in advance, for marketing and sales purposes.
Casanova said that from the first moment that the project had been discussed, the first condition to investors of President Danilo Medina had been that the operations and contracts of the cargo area in Puerto Plata port had to be respected, as well as the building of a new area of operations for fishermen, that was accepted by the company that finally won the tender and was thus committed to doing so in the concession contract.
The group explained that they had been in talks with the representatives of the shipping lines which operated in Puerto Plata port because they had to prepare a plan for the transfer of chassis, heavy equipment, workshops, and containers, that operate in the port to be transferred to areas, in which the new facilities for the cargo area's operation were built.
During the first year of operations of Taíno Bay cruise terminal, between November 2020-December 2021, Puerto Plata is expected to receive over 650,000 passengers and over 150 cruise ships.