The impact of the tourism industry in the Dominican Republic economy is undeniable. The Central Bank says that in 2017 tourism receipts were US$7.18 billion, or around 38% of the total of goods and services exports. Tourism generates 25% of all the country’s hard currency. Foreign exchange receipts in 2017 were US$8.84 billion. The Central Bank says that a record number of 6,197,542 million tourists visited by air, and another 1,107,966 came on board cruise ships in 2017.
The data is in the “Importance and Evolution of Tourism in the Dominican Republic 2012-2017” (Importancia y Evolución del Turismo en la República Dominicana 2012-2017) study recently published by the Central Bank.
The data on tourism receipts does not include all the side businesses that benefit from the activities generated by the tourism industry, such as fuel consumption by airlines touching Dominican airports, direct foreign investment in hotels, taxes, airport fees an duties that the Central Bank lists separately under “other services”. Olga Díaz Mora, responsible for the study, said that tourism linkages reach out to the farming, manufacturing, energy, finance and insurance services sectors.
The impact of the hotels, restaurants and bars sector was 7.9% of the GDP in 2017, with an estimated 333,000 direct and indirect jobs, or 7.2% of the economically occupied population in the country. The Dominican Republic has the largest inventory of hotels in the Caribbean and Central America, with the largest concentration along the eastern Punta Cana coastline at around 77,119 rooms.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic is ranked fourth in international tourist arrivals behind Argentina, Brazil and Chile.
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Banco Central
Banco Central
23 October 2018
