Air and cruise ship arrivals to the Dominican Republic continue to increase, as the country maintains its leadership in tourism arrivals in the Caribbean and Central American region.
Air arrivals alone this year are estimated to surpass 7.8 million. The Ministry of Tourism announced a new record of 2,076,171 tourist arrivals for the first three months of 2023. “With that figure we break even our own records, since we surpassed 2019 by 11%, 2021 by 190% and 2022 by 21%,” said the Minister of Tourism David Collado during the monthly press conference where he shared details on the tourist statistics for the March and the first quarter of the year.
Ministry of Tourism statistics indicate that the main sources of tourists in March 2023 were the United States with 48.1%, Canada with 23.2%, Colombia with 2.9%, France with 2.6% and Germany with 2.5%.
Tourist air arrivals in March were 740,324, 10% more than in pre-pandemic March 2019 and 20% more than in 2022.
Collado highlighted the sustained increases in cruise ship arrivals, with 280,247 cruise passengers, surpassing arrivals for March 2022 that were 134,070. The difference is the operation of the new Taino Bay port in Puerto Plata.
“If we add the 740,324 tourists who arrived by air to the 280,247 cruise passengers, we are talking about 1,020,571 visitors in March alone, something never seen before in a single month,” Collado said.
“From January to March of this year we received 2,076,171 tourists by air and 806,527 cruise passengers. This indicates that the Dominican Republic received the arrival of 2,882,698 visitors in the first quarter, something never seen before. This is why we are a reference in world tourism”, said Minister Collado.
He forecast that at the end of the year, if no extraordinary event is registered, the country will receive 7.8 million tourists, which he described as another record figure in the tourism sector.
Read more in Spanish:
Ministry of Tourism
N Digital
25 April 2023