By Kyle Castellanos
In the summer of 2019, a worrying trend concerning tourism to the Dominican Republic came to light. This began in April 2019 with the death of Robert Bell Wallace who died after becoming seriously ill, drinking from his hotel’s minibar three days earlier. Similarly, seven other life-threatening medical incidents involving American tourists, ranging from respiratory failure to heart attack, had no explicable cause. However, several of the cases involved people drinking alcohol from hotels’ minibars, suggesting a potential causal link.
The possibility of the cases being linked created alarm, sparking talks of national security concerns as conspiracy theories abounded. In response to public hysteria when the news broke, the FBI decided to intervene in the investigation on the matter. In early June, a State Department official described the actions the FBI was taking as “technical assistance with the toxicology reports” of the deaths.
Although there was never a travel warning to the Dominican Republic issued by the United States, American tourism to the island fell 74.3% this summer. This is in large part due to the conspiracy theories and security concerns circulating in the media, dramatizing the deaths in the process.
But after several months of FBI investigation, reports regarding the deaths in the DR have been partially released. In them, the FBI officially ruled out the possibility of methanol poisoning from tainted alcohol. While the reports do temporarily put concerns about foul play to rest, the investigation has not concluded; they have simply ruled out tainted alcohol as a linking factor.
The repercussions of this mass hysteria extend much further than a statistic proving the decline in American tourism to the Dominican Republic. American tourism to the islands in the Caribbean, especially the Dominican Republic, is a central part of their economies. Certain Caribbean states depend upon American tourism for their livelihood. Public policy in the Dominican Republic is tailored in order to promote the development of the tourism industry.
Now that summer is over and the Dominican Republic has felt the economic impact of the lack of American tourism, observers are looking at how the country will attempt to recover from the lost tourist activity. This is particularly noteworthy since the investigation has not been fully closed, and there is still not a sense of closure among the public. Politicians in the Dominican Republic must alter public policy to adjust for the circumstances or reassure tourists that security is not a concern. If not, the recent economic shock could portend a coming political one.