A different place to visit.

50 % ?
Honey I think you're spending too much time in the sankie forums

I think you will find that the US is the largest source of tourits for the DR, in excess of 25%*. Second would be Germany. Canada is far behind at around 10%. You can confirm these numbers on the Central Bank's wed-site .http://www.bancentral.gov.do/
*These are people entering on tourist cards, so Dominican's living in the US would not be included.

Howmar the link isn't working for me .

samanasuenos said:

In your opinion, what would be different in terms of the tourism offerings if the majority of the tourists came, not from Canada, but from:

1. China
2. Australia
3. Russia
4. Luxembourg
5. Pakistan

Pick one of the above and be creative!


-- Sam

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Before I started going to the DR so often I traveled many times to Luxembourg, it is a wonderful small country. By most standards people from Luxembourg seem to be a little wealthier than those from the US or other parts of Europe. I found the people of Luxembourg classy and charming, and do not see them as tourists in the DR. They seem to be more of the French Rivera type to me. The Dominican Republic lack the certain outdoor charm these folks are accustom to.

Chuckuindy

samanasuenos said:

Now that you all have corrected me, if one of the above countries provided 50% or more of the tourist traffic to the RD, how would that change the hotels, tourist restaurants, trinkets and so on - other than the obvious - language.

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samanasuenos said:

Would there be more or less sex-related tourism?

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Regardless of what you may hear or read sex-related tourism dose not have a real economic impact on the DR. If you were to take Sosua and POP out of the mix of places tourists go for sex in the DR the revenue generated is insignificant.

samanasuenos said:

Would there be more or less pressure to clean public places?

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No, it would not change. The common people of the DR are not interested in cleaning up after themselves or others.

samanasuenos said:

How much would the variety of food, or lack of it, differ from today?

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None, if you know where to go you can get one of the largest varieties of foods in the world in the DR. Granted the quality is not that of Paris, London, or NYC, but the selection is.

Gourmands, But No Gourmets

chuckuindy said:

.... if you know where to go you can get one of the largest varieties of foods in the world in the DR.

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The cuisine of a country ought not to be judged by a few international restaurants in three or four bigger towns.
The normal eating place for more than 98% of the population (estimated) is the "comedor".
And there it is "res, cerdo, pollo" (sometimes chivo, pescado, cangrejo...), with rice and habichuelas (mang?, platanos fritos, OK), the "bandera" so to say.
You need not ask which style, taste or whatever.
It's a 365 recipe.
That much for gourmet variety.

m'frog

AnnaC said:

Howmar the link isn't working for me .

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That's because it's a government link. And like the government, it rarely works.

Try it again. Earlier, it didn't work for me, now it works.

HOWMAR said:

I think you will find that the US is the largest source of tourits for the DR, in excess of 25%*. Second would be Germany. Canada is far behind at around 10%. You can confirm these numbers on the Central Bank's wed-site .http://www.bancentral.gov.do/
*These are people entering on tourist cards, so Dominican's living in the US would not be included.

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The link statistics for 2006 say 482,395 USA 334,000 CANADIAN, 105,069 German, 164,079 French.

bob saunders said:

The link statistics for 2006 say 482,395 USA 334,000 CANADIAN, 105,069 German, 164,079 French.

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But this year is only until july and most tourist from Europe come in the summer. Anyway Canada is number 2 in 2005, closely followed by France, Spain and Germany.

I dont think it really matters where the tourist come from, but it matters what kind of tourist is coming from each country.

Although it is kind of interesting to see how different Las Terrenas (mostly french and italian i think??) is from some other tourist places.

samanasuenos said:

I am going to request polite replies. But first, I am want to be clear that I am working from the assumption that most tourists to the RD come from Canada. Shall we say upwards of 50% of the tourists? (Haitians are not counted as tourists for our purposes today.)

In your opinion, what would be different in terms of the tourism offerings if the majority of the tourists came, not from Canada, but from:

1. China
2. Australia
3. Russia
4. Luxembourg
5. Pakistan

Pick one of the above and be creative!

-- Sam

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I have been in touristy places with a lot of Russian population - services were offered in Russian because Russian is the only language majority of tourists will speak and understand. Different language versions of the same show were going on in different rooms at the same time - Russian, German, English. They can also try serving straight 40% alcohol as one of the drink items in AI menus Default - no ice in any drink.

DR and other parts of the Caribbean are actually offered as one of popular tourist destinations for people in Eastern Europe and Russia. I checked, prices were not that different from any other place they could go to. I wonder what percentage of people from Russia and other FSU countries actually go to DR for a vacation. As I said, they like to be served in Russian and places that can provide that. Spanish is not one of the languages they would try to learn. Maybe that is why they don't really travel to the Caribbean that much.

The Russians would drink loads of liquor, the Luxemburgers would ask for quiet, boring, neat places and opportunities to check their bank accounts, the Australians would ask for larger beer glasses, and the Pakistani would make Brugal and Presidente go bankrupt and ask for different sports with bats and stick on the television.
But seriously, could you tell why you selected exactly those countries? If you want to see whether the DR could attract a different kind of tourists, and in the process change its infrastructure accordingly, like Jostan writes looking at other types of tourists from N-America and Europe might be more useful. Or is there another objective?