It was August 2020, within the coronary heart of the preliminary reopening interval throughout the pandemic, when the Dominican Republic’s tourism increase largely started.
Not less than that’s the date that Tourism Minister David Collado factors to.
However if you take a look at the numbers, it’s arduous to disagree.
Since August 2020, the nation has totaled slightly below 32 million vacationer arrivals — a sustained increase that simply eclipses the remainder of the Caribbean.
Even final month, sometimes one of many slower durations in Caribbean tourism, the nation totaled 811,192 air arrivals, itself a 2 % leap in comparison with July 2023 — and a whopping 37 % increased than July 2019, earlier than the pandemic began.
It’s “sharp progress,” Collado stated in an replace this week, and never simply within the conventional stronghold of Punta Cana.
In recent times, due to focused pushes, locations like Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata and La Romana have all seen their tourism numbers develop considerably, a testomony to a vacation spot that continues to tempo the area.
The one query is what’s subsequent.
Jacqueline Mora, the Dominican Republic’s Vice Minister of Tourism, informed Caribbean Journal earlier this yr that the aim was to to document 12 million whole guests (that’s, cruise and air mixed) by the tip of 2024.
Thus far, it seems to be just like the nation is properly on its option to realizing that.
CJ Skilled Take: anybody who has been watching the Dominican Republic’s tourism efforts during the last half-decade will admit that the nation’s overarching dedication to the trade has been paying off, each in lodge growth and total tourism progress.
