President Luis Abinader and Minister David Collado affirm that Tourism exceeds expectations with a historic recovery.
SANTO DOMINGO.- The tourism sector has achieved an evident recovery in the current management, registering the arrival of 2 million 400 thousand visitors from January to July 2021 and another 2.5 million are expected to arrive in the country in the second semester.
This was revealed by the Minister of Tourism, David Collado, in his monthly rendering of accounts, in which he was accompanied by President Luis Abinader, during a ceremony held this Monday at the Ambassador hotel in the capital.
“We can say today, here, that 2,470,282 visitors have arrived from January to July of this year, more than the entirety of 2020. There is the recovery of tourism,” said Minister Collado.
He also reported that in the first six months of the year the sector contributed, in foreign currency, more than US $ 2.4 billion.
Speaking of the historical recovery of the industry, despite the pandemic, the official highlighted that only in July the country received 572,644 visitors, which represents 24 percent more than in June and exceeds 97 percent of the same month of 2019.
As an important achievement for this effort between the public and private sectors, the country achieved the recovery of more than 60 thousand direct formal jobs and around 102 thousand informal and indirect jobs.
Likewise, in relation to flights, routes and frequencies were doubled, as was the case with Iberia, which increased from four to eleven weekly frequencies.
Collado also stressed that the Tourism Cabinet began new works and gave continuity with transparency and dedication to those that had been paralyzed for years by the previous management.
The Mitur official offered these growth figures together with the Technical Deputy Minister of this ministry, Jacqueline Mora, supported by the modern Tourist Intelligence System (SITUR), which offers the latest statistics on the sector.
While President Abinader, speaking at the end of the activity, listed some of the main initiatives and achievements promoted by the Tourism Cabinet together with the private sector in the 11 months at the helm of the State.
“We have been able to demonstrate that with bold policies and collective effort we have been able, not only to withstand the impact of Covid-19, but also that we have managed to position our country on a better competitive map throughout the Caribbean and Latin America region” , emphasized the president.
He affirmed that tourism means employment, foreign exchange, purchases, and in general, a country brand, for which he highlighted the importance of the tourism sector for its Government action as a means to achieve the goal of growth and sustainable development of the nation. .
At the meeting, Minister Collado also presented, on a giant screen, part of the road works and infrastructures executed in this period, as well as testimonies from collaborators who make up the tourism value chain in the country.
“In July we all won”, mentioned the Technical Vice Minister, Jaqueline Mora, in her presentation, who also commented that 14,000 tourists visited the Dominican Republic with the arrival of outgoing cruise ships from the United States, and 5,000 more by Ferris.
This meeting, held in the Garden Room of the Hotel Embajador a Royal Hideway Santo Domingo, was attended by ministers, government officials, ambassadors, representatives of the private public banking system, businessmen, and entities of the country’s tourism sector.
