The government plans to spend US$23 million on promoting the Dominican Republic’s image this year. The country has been and will be represented at 87 tourism fairs around the world between last year and this year. According to El Caribe, however, there are still some problems. Basically, the problems stem from a lack of continuity between the message and follow up actions, as well as different messages during the year. The latest campaign started just this month. Other issues are the difficulty of establishing a strategy regarding the Dominican Republic as a trademark destination and about US$40 million that went missing during the former administration.
DR1 sources indicate that Fiona Gilmore from the UK, who is one of the world’s leading authorities on country branding, has been contracted to advise on the branding of the Dominican Republic. She is expected to begin work in the fall.
On the positive side, tourism promotion efforts in Russia, Mexico, Finland and Argentina have produced increased flows of tourists from these areas. Russian tourists increased by 111% and from Finland by 605%. Nevertheless, Russian tourism is expected to decline given that the cost of a visa to the DR has now been set at EUR250.
According to sources talking to El Caribe reporters, the goal is to increase visitors by 35% by the year 2008. This would mean going from 3.5 million to 4.7 million visitors.