Editor's Note- The declining US economy and the subsequent worsening of the world's economic situation and the conversion to the Euro dollar had seen a decline in tourism during the past year on the peninsula.   And now with the tragic events of the recent past, including the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the related crash of the airliner that went down in western Pennsylvania, war in Afghanistan and then the crash of the American Airlines airliner bound for Santo Domingo, tourism on the Samana Peninsula has plummeted.  Several hotels had closed for the season just prior to September (hotels that normally stay open all year) and then the bottom fell out for the rest.  With occupancy rates plummeting 75% in some cases, it has become an effort for most to remain open, even with extremely limited staff and reduced operations.

 Reservations Down- December bookings were down from last year and although hoteliers remain optimistic, the upcoming season is delivering mixed signals with many tourist-related businesses preparing for the worst.  What reservations being made seem to be last-minute decisions with travelers looking for last-minute fare reductions. Many travelers have expressed the feeling to us that airline industry fares are still overpriced.  However, on the positive side, very few travelers are expressing fears of further terrorism acts related to flying.  Make no mistake about it, airfares are up and in some cases, by at least 50%.  Cautious Optimism- Even we at Samana.Net have felt the economic downturn with a number of large and small sponsors failing to renew their advertising pages with us.  New page sales are off as well, with all this probably being to the delight of our detractors and competitors.  However, after a very low number of page hits and visits in October (with reader circulation off by some 30%), the statistics are now improving considerably with this December's Usage Report showing the greatest number of visits made to the website since its inception on the internet late in July of 2000.
 In view of this dramatic increase, we remain cautiously optimistic for the coming year.
 Copyright Infringements- And finally, some of you may have noted the new references to Samana Net in many of the news items reported and new page material created.   We have also had to resort to imprinting watermarks in the photographs displayed on our site.   We regret to have to resort to this blatant, seemingly self-serving promotion, but in recent months certain competing Samana-related websites have made liberal use of our copyrighted material without our permission.  The watermarks and insertion of our name in the news items and much of our website's copy is an attempt to dissuade these unauthorized uses of our material.