Abe
Your wrong on the vote for retirement communities (maybe the retirement communites will help) and "seasonal resorts" (feed your family for 6 months out the year.)
Bilijou
I understood your point and I don't deny that Tourism is a large source of revenue. Tourism has to be assumed that its part of DR's plan when revenue creation is discussed. You just made is sound as if tourism in DR was just discovered and the government all of sudden decided to make it part of the long term plan for this magical world of prosperity in DR that has yet to be realized.
You can't deny that tourism alone has done very little in getting Dominicans out of poverty. Given that fact, other revenue streams must be created or strengthen. Its as simple as that. All i'm saying is diversify. Like every advanced country in the world. The ones that have progressed did not put all their eggs in one basket. DR's biggest asset is their people. Use them and not for cheap labor just for investors to make a buck. This is for both foreign investors and local investors.
Foreign investors for the most part rely on tourist or expats. These Megaprojects you speak of consist of building large gated communities to obviously get a nice return (nothing wrong that if your capitalist) and sale primarily to other foreign investors. Remember most of the cost of these new homes in DR would require your average american to get a 30 mortgage to pay for it, so you know they are not being built for the locals. How much of those dollars or pesos will go into the pockets of the locals?
Normally when you build large communites (megaprojects) you would hope to assume one thing and thats because a lot of jobs are available in that area, wrong. Its for tourist and expats and not the locals.
Leonel may have good intentions but gosh, its easy to provide a long-term plan. You can easily wash your hands from it after your term because your plan usually extends past your presidency. If it doesn't work and usually it doesn't, who will they blame. Why it doesn't work, because its the same old plan. Tourism, tourism tourism.
Again, nothing wrong with tourism, just diversify. Tourism will not save DR from poverty. Thats my opinion, and DR is not the only island that depends on tourism and those other islands are in the same poverty doodoo just like DR.
IF tourism is all that, I wonder if revenue sharing is in Leonel's, plan for the people. Or revenue sharing from the cacinos. How about these large constructions that are being built all over the North Country, will it also actually house the people that actually build them by providing creative lending to help strengthen the middle class. Will they even be allowed to walk through the gates after the construction is done? Or can these tourist dollars go towards schools that will teach these kids to become fluent in English and become bilingual and to interact with tourist since tourism is the bread winner. I doubt those are in his plans.
