According to CLIC Inmobiliaria, citing MITUR data, Romana-Bayahíbe averaged 85.4% hotel occupancy in 2025 and 90.5% in the first half of 2026, but most of that demand stays in all-inclusive resorts.
According to CLIC Inmobiliaria, which cites the Dominican tourism ministry's MITUR data, the Romana-Bayahíbe zone had the country's highest hotel occupancy: 85.4% on average in 2025 and 90.5% in the first half of 2026. Bávaro-Punta Cana was at 78.5%. The zone's yearly series is 82.7% (2022), 81.0% (2023), 79.5% (2024) and 85.4% (2025). Foreign guests made up 95.5% of visitors in 2025 (97.3% in H1 2026), versus 94.2% in Bávaro-Punta Cana. Access figures point the same way. La Romana airport received 102,070 foreign arrivals in 2025, up 44% on 2024, while Punta Cana airport, about 45 minutes away, handled 5.27 million. La Romana port moved 278,791 cruise passengers in 2025, and neighboring Catalina Island received 50,103 in the first half of 2026 alone, more than its full-year 2025 total of 33,781. The author stresses a caveat: this demand sits mainly in all-inclusive hotels. The zone has 3,055 hotel rooms dominated by large operators, and package tourists are not a natural short-term rental audience. In the article's view, Bayahíbe is therefore not the strongest choice for those who expect Airbnb income to cover a property from the first year, and the local Airbnb market is still taking shape. Las Terrenas is cited as better suited to that model. The case for the zone, as CLIC presents it, is limited land: Bayahíbe borders the protected Cotubanamá National Park, so the developable strip is finite. It frames this as a multi-year appreciation thesis rather than an immediate cash-flow play. As of the July 2026 cutoff, CLIC lists 47 properties for sale in Bayahíbe with a median asking price of US$187,000 (8 are new developments). The 39 active apartments have a median of US$169,000, starting from US$80,000, against a US$263,000 apartment median in Las Terrenas. These are asking prices from one agency's inventory, not transaction data, and the 2026 figures cover only the first half of the year.