President Leonel Fernandez instructed the National Competitiveness Council to continue work under its leadership in the tourism industry and come forth in early 2006 with the Competitiveness and Development Plan for the tourism sector. The plan is to have a focus on sustainability, social inclusion and the adoption of new trends and technologies. The National Competitiveness Council supports the tourism clusters program that seeks to empower local destinations and communities to foster sustainable tourism and competitiveness. President Fernandez sat in for six hours on Saturday at the International Forum for Tourism Competitiveness held at the Punta Cana Resort. The President listened to presentations made by Tourism Minister Felix Jimenez, Enrique de Marchena, president of the National Hotel Association, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, secretary general of the Caribbean Tourism Organization, Peter Yesawich, chairman of Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown and Russell, former minister of tourism of Ireland Matt McNulty and Mexican competitiveness expert Rene Villareal. Also speaking at the conference were Augusto Huescar, head of market intelligence at the World Tourism Organization, Ruben Dario Rodriguez, on the Riviera Maya experience; and German Porras, former minister of tourism of Spain. DR1 will be providing links to the presentations latter this week as they become available.