The Dominican Tourist Development Council (Confotur) approved eight tourism development projects worth a total investment of US$ 467.5 million, and which will provide 2,212 new rooms in the country, tourism being the country´s main source of revenue.
According to a statement from the local Ministry of Tourism, the Council also gave provisional clearance to a further five initiatives worth approximately US$205.9 million in investments and 1,326 new rooms.
The projects in question are hotel, holiday home, apart-hotel and tourist attractions projects, to be built in La Altagracia and El Seibo (east), Puerto Plata (north), Samaná (northeast) and in the capital, Santo Domingo.
So far this year, Confotur, a dependency of the Ministry of Tourism, has approved a total of 33 tourism initiatives, with an estimated investment of US$ 2,865 million, adding 14,669 new rooms.
They will be built in the provinces of La Altagracia, Puerto Plata, Samaná, Santiago, San Cristóbal, Santo Domingo, El Seibo and Barahona.
The investments come from Panama, the United States, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Argentina and the Dominican Republic itself.
The Dominican Republic´s main source of income is tourism, and, according to official figures it received 7.5 million tourists, including one million cruise passengers, in 2018.
According to the Central Bank, the country received 2,988,155 foreign and non-resident Dominican passengers withIn the first five months of this year, i.e., 134,157 more passengers than the same period last year.
Currently, the authorities are conducting a program to counter what they call a disinformation campaign against the country following the deaths of several American tourists in hotels in the country, deaths attributed to health problems.
Source: Periódico Hoy