The European Chamber of Commerce in the Dominican Republic has announced it will be hosting the Dominican Republic Forum to promote the country as a tourist destination. Special guest speakers will be Minister of Tourism Francisco Javier Garcia and ambassador Alberto Navarro, head of the European Union delegation in the Dominican Republic. The event is scheduled to take place at the JW Marriott on 6 April 2016. The theme will be discussing the potential of the Dominican Republic for becoming the hub of the Caribbean, and center of multi-destination tourism.
The conference is taking place at a time when leading US airlines have announced they will begin flying to Cuba.
Upon making the announcement, chamber president Hans Witsenboer advocated for less taxes to attract more tourists. He said that air arrivals pay charges of US$93.50 per air arrival. He proposes to reduce this to US$33.50 to encourage more visits.
Witsenboer said that to encourage cruise ship visits, the government considerably reduced the taxes charged for sea arrivals. A total of 300,000 are already expected this year, with prospects to increase to 600,000 in 2017 and one million by 2018.
Likewise, Gustavo de Hostos, member of the European Chamber of Commerce board spoke in favor of the Dominican Republic making the case with the fellow signatories of the European Participation Agreement (EPA) for unifying taxes with Caricom countries so that a visitor should not have to pay in each of the countries similar taxes as those paid in the DR. He said that if taxes were reduced, the Caribbean could become a multi-destination region for tourists coming from China and India. He said that the same taxation scheme that applies to visitors by sea should also be applied to air arrivals.
