My musings for a Friday afternoon....
In 2019 the Dominican Republic was in the news for many months with stories of the mysterious deaths of mostly AMERICAN tourists.
The deaths happened mainly in all inclusive resorts in varying locations around the island, all the deaths were of relatively healthy tourists who were either young or middle aged. Their symptoms mimicked poisoning which was alternatively theorized to be from air cooling systems, cleaning solutions or tainted alcohol.
The deaths were largely unexplained for a long time, conspiracy theories abounded, mini bars in rooms were removed, a campaign trying to put a shine on the “ safety” of vacationing to the tropical island was put in full swing.
Finally local authorities came to the official conclusion that the deaths were part of a statistically and naturally occurring fact: people die on vacation.
This was (timidly) corroborated by our own FBI.
However the fact remains that the deaths seem to have been clustered during a specific period of time, that the symptoms prior to the deaths were suspiciously similar and that many resorts voluntarily reviewed their minibars and liquor providers, insinuating that the deaths may have been caused by poisoning.
Yet all this was swept under the rug, tour operators and hoteliers rushing to create ads to improve the damaged image of this wonderful island, while deaths seemed to magically end.......people just stopped dying on vacation?
Of course occasionally death can occur while on vacation in ANY country in the world and one should be careful not to disparage a specific location because of it, however the Dominican Republic incidents remain unsolved in my mind.
Someone somehow either accidentally of purposefully caused those deaths of otherwise heathy vacationers and as of today no one including those who may have supplied tainted liquor to the resorts has been held responsible.
That is NOT acceptable! I no longer feel I need to steer my clients away from the island and I still urge caution to anyone traveling anywhere but......unfortunately my level of skepticism of government and tourism officials has once again been diminished.
And that is a sad conclusion.
In 2019 the Dominican Republic was in the news for many months with stories of the mysterious deaths of mostly AMERICAN tourists.
The deaths happened mainly in all inclusive resorts in varying locations around the island, all the deaths were of relatively healthy tourists who were either young or middle aged. Their symptoms mimicked poisoning which was alternatively theorized to be from air cooling systems, cleaning solutions or tainted alcohol.
The deaths were largely unexplained for a long time, conspiracy theories abounded, mini bars in rooms were removed, a campaign trying to put a shine on the “ safety” of vacationing to the tropical island was put in full swing.
Finally local authorities came to the official conclusion that the deaths were part of a statistically and naturally occurring fact: people die on vacation.
This was (timidly) corroborated by our own FBI.
However the fact remains that the deaths seem to have been clustered during a specific period of time, that the symptoms prior to the deaths were suspiciously similar and that many resorts voluntarily reviewed their minibars and liquor providers, insinuating that the deaths may have been caused by poisoning.
Yet all this was swept under the rug, tour operators and hoteliers rushing to create ads to improve the damaged image of this wonderful island, while deaths seemed to magically end.......people just stopped dying on vacation?
Of course occasionally death can occur while on vacation in ANY country in the world and one should be careful not to disparage a specific location because of it, however the Dominican Republic incidents remain unsolved in my mind.
Someone somehow either accidentally of purposefully caused those deaths of otherwise heathy vacationers and as of today no one including those who may have supplied tainted liquor to the resorts has been held responsible.
That is NOT acceptable! I no longer feel I need to steer my clients away from the island and I still urge caution to anyone traveling anywhere but......unfortunately my level of skepticism of government and tourism officials has once again been diminished.
And that is a sad conclusion.
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