Travel was up to the Dominican Republic in January 2004, according to just released statistics from the Central Bank. Some 21,780 non-resident air arrivals represented a 6.9% increase over the same period last year. Statistics for January are the best in the past four years and foreign air arrivals were up 7.6% for the year as a whole. Central Bank data indicates that hotel occupancy for January was 86%, which is 5.6 percentage points more than was registered in 2003. The East Coast continues to be a magnet for foreign tourism, with an occupancy of 93.3% for Punta Cana/Bavaro and 95.8% for La Romana/Bayahibe.
The Central Bank credits the positive effects on local tourism to the increasing value of the Euro compared to the US dollar, and the US dollar when compared to the Dominican peso, making the Dominican destinations the most competitively priced in the Caribbean region.