Minister of Tourism Felix Jimenez said that this year more than 2,600,000 tourists will visit the DR. He said this is a 10% increase over last year’s visitors. Last year an estimated 2,200,000 tourists visited the DR. He said there has been an increase in US, French, German, Spanish, Italian, English tourists. The US and French markets are up 25%; the German market will grow 20%; and the Spanish and Italian markets are up about 10%. He said that Argentinean tourism has declined from 89,000 travelers in 1998 to 65,000 so far this year, reflecting the economic problems in that South American nation. Swedish travel is up. In the first nine months of the year some 22,000 Swedish tourists had visited and the year’s total is expected to reach 30,000.
