Smokeshop

36 SMOKESHOP April 2016 out-of-stocks in many areas." According to Hoejsgaard, 55 percent of Cuba's cigar exports went to Europe last year. The single largest opportunity for the industry going forward, said Hoejsgaard, is Chinese mainland travelers. Last year, 109 million Chinese people traveled over- seas and spent $229 billion shopping, he said citing TFK Research, a fact that "we as the Dominican cigar industry really need to seize on." The gains against Cuban cigars in in- ternational markets were a bright spot in what Hoejsgaard described as an overall challenging year last year. "I think it's fair to say 2015 turned out to be a lot tougher than we anticipated just one year ago. The overall American market was probably the only market that lived up to expectations with a growth in sales of about two percent, but in Europe the overall market clearly declined fur- ther—we estimate about five percent," Hoejsgaard said. There were two bright spots though, he noted: Spain, where sales started to show signs of recovery following years of repressed sales due to the financial cri- sis, posted some growth, and Germany, the second-largest premium cigar mar- ket in the world after the U.S., also per- formed well. Asian market cigar sales growth slowed, and that was not anticipated, said Hoejsgaard, blaming the Chinese gov- ernments' anti-luxury and anti-spending measures, which then hurt sales in Asia's largest cigar markets, Hong Kong and Macau—both driven by Chinese travel- ers. Another major setback was the Macau government's smoking ban in casinos. "But despite this, and thanks to a strong recovery in Japan and very strong gross in Malaysia and Singapore, basical- ly we estimate that Asia's overall cigar market still grew by single digits and a little bit higher inside China," Hoejsgaard continued. And long term, the Asian mar- ket remains key, having grown about 16 percent per annum the past five or six years, he said. "It is an amazing opportunity and it will just become more and more im- portant," said Hoejsgaard. "I think all of us are entering that market… It's sort of a hybrid between the European and the American market, so there is really plenty of opportunities ." ON MODERN FARMS, DRY WEATHER YIELDS MORE FLAVORFUL CROPS While Cuba has struggled with crop is- sues in the past few seasons, the Domin- ican Republic has benefited from good growing conditions, yet another feather in the country's cap. "It is not a surprise to anyone that to make a good cigar you need good to- baccos," said Nirka Reyes, president of De Los Reyes Cigars in prefacing her insight to this year's Dominican tobac- co crop. While little can be done about excessively rainy growing seasons that can negatively affect crops, the opposite is true on modern, irrigated farms when there's little rain. "Basically, we had a very dry season, and this is a good thing because on farms that have irrigation systems, the tobacco gets better," said Reyes. "The tobacco is friends of dryness, because with an irri- gation system, the plant tends to eat more and the roots grow… Plants will have lots more ligero and viso this year than seco." While not all tobacco farms in the Dominican Republic feature irrigation systems, those involved with the premi- um cigar market are nearly universally equipped—the risks associated with such valuable crops are too high not to be. So while the total harvest of Dominican to- bacco was down last year—as much as 20 percent according to Reyes—the impact on the premium cigar segment will be negligible, presenters agreed. "The good thing is, with the dryness a lot of diseases don't get to the plants, so we're going to have very good tobacco this year," said Reyes, "a lot of ligero to make a lot of good, flavorful cigars." Reyes also reported that there are currently about 20 different tobacco varieties being actively cultivated in the Dominican Republic, a number that fluctuates depending upon the hybrids and proprietary strains pur- sued by manufacturers. PRODUCING REGIONS > > Clockwise from top left: Litto Gomez, founder and president, La Flor Dominicana; represen- tatives from many of the 2016 Procigar Festival member manufacturers; Abe Flores, founder and president of PDR Cigars, who was introduced as the newest member of Procigar.

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