The Governor of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (BCRD), Héctor Valdez Albizu announced close collaboration will continue with the Association of Hotels and Tourism (Asonahores) presided by Rafael Blanco Tejada. In a meeting on 28 December 2020, the country’s chief monetary authority and tourism sector representatives evaluated the industry’s performance in 2020 and prospects for 2021.
The Central Bank agreed to initiate inter-institutional collaboration actions to strengthen the statistical analysis and improve the accuracy of statistics of the tourism sector as part of changing the reference year of the national accounts. The statistics will enable the country to better grasp the effects of tourism on foreign exchange generation, creation of direct and indirect jobs, and impact of tourism on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Andrés Marranzini, vice president of Asonahores, and Javier Tejada, Asonahores director, highlighted the important contribution of the tourism sector to the national economy.
Asonahores president, Rafael Blanco Tejada said that as of November 2020, 65% of the country’s resorts and hotels had reopened. He estimated occupancy at an average of 45%. Blanco Tejada spoke of efforts to restore the flow of tourists from Canada, Ukraine and South America.
Valdez Albizu pointed out that after the reopening of the airports in July, tourism’s flow has been gradually recovering. An example of this is that in November the country received 37.9% of the total number of non-resident visitors (foreigners and Dominicans) who entered the country in the same month last year.
He pointed out that in the month of December, tourists’ flow is expected to improve to approximately 50.0% compared to December 2019. He also reported that the arrival of non-resident visitors to the Dominican Republic has been 2,056,856 tourists during January-November 2020. Within this total, 1,513,262 are foreigners and 543,594 non-resident Dominicans.
Valdez Albizu observed that despite the adverse conditions caused by the pandemic, the economic outlook for the Dominican Republic is very positive, influenced by the set of expansionary measures that have been implemented, the resilience of the productive sectors, and recent advances in the area of Covid-19 vaccines. He estimated that the economy could grow by about 6% in 2021.
Others at the meeting were Deputy Governor Clarissa de la Rocha, Central Bank Manager Ervin Novas, Deputy Manager of Monetary, Exchange and Financial Policies Joel Tejeda, Deputy Manager of National Accounts Ramón González, and director of the International Department Brenda Villanueva.
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Central Bank
December 28th, 2020