Dominican Republic’s Travel Industry Gets Stronger

Tourism minister Francisco Javier Garcia on Sunday said the tourism industry remains firm as visitor figures reaching "blue numbers," with higher figures over the same period last year.

"Right now we’re in blue numbers, tourist visits in July experienced a near 5percent increase which means we’re still the Caribbean’s number one tourism destination," he said. He said the figure is nearly twice the region’s growth.

According to the Central Bank, 2.9 million foreigners and non-resident locals arrived in Dominican Republic in the first seven months, of which 2.5 million were tourists and 358,639 Dominicans.

The increase was mostly due to North America’s “dynamic” tourism which continues to supply 24,702 additional visitors, followed by South America, with 2,896, compared with July 2012.

Those visitors, the study says, "offset" the overall decrease of 10,568 visitors from Europe, the Caribbean and elsewhere, during the January-July 2013 period.

North America continues its lead with the highest number of tourists visiting Dominican Republic (60.42 percent), followed by Europe (24.58 percent) and South America (10.18 percent), the Central Bank said.

During that same period Germany followed (12,697), then Sweden (5,917) and England (3,895), partially offsetting declines in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Holland.