The President of the Dominican Republic, Louis Abinaderexplained this Tuesday how a multisectoral and coordinated strategy to recover tourism after the crisis caused by the covid pandemic has allowed the recovery of the sector and, therefore, of the country’s economy.
Abinader said he is “positive and optimistic” about the future of the tourism sector in the Dominican Republicat a press conference at the Davos Economic Forum where the 2021 Travel & Tourism Development Index: Rebuilding for a Sustainable and Resilient Future was launched.
Japan, the United States, Spain, France, and Germany top the list in this report published by the Davos Forum, which ranks 117 economies for a variety of factors that are crucial to the development, sustainability, and resilience of their food industry. travel and tourism, which in turn contributes to economic and social development.
The report reveals that the sector is showing signs of recovery in many parts of the world after being hit hard by the covid pandemic.
President Abinader highlights in Davos strategy to promote tourism
The Dominican president explained that a tourism cabinet was created, with each area of government, including the ministers of Health and Defense, “to have only one voice and coordinated policies.”
Given that tourism accounts for more than 20% of the gross domestic product (GDP), «recovering the economy of the Dominican Republic meant recovering tourism. We meet every week in the tourism cabinet to analyze each issuing country, see the changes of the day, the crises, how to adapt, “since thousands of people in the country depend on tourism, he explained.
Abinader stressed that the Dominican Republic suffered strongly from the negative impact of the pandemic on its GDP due to the importance of this sector, unlike other countries in the region.
“In Brazil, the part of tourism in the GDP is very small, in Chile it has no impact, in Argentina it is small, in Uruguay it is, and they have also had a good recovery,” he said.
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He said to recovery «helped us by our health infrastructure. We had at least second level hospitals, and sometimes third level, in each tourist destination and we were the first country in the world to create free covid insurance for each tourist, this gave confidence to travel to our country.
“Now US tourism has grown, Canada’s is growing again. Before we had visitors from Russia, even from Ukraine, in fact, the last plane that arrived in kyiv before the closure of the airspace due to the war was from Punta Cana », he pointed out.
«We had the best April in tourism ever, and we hope to have the best May. And the World Tourism Organization named us the country with the best recovery in the sector in the world,” he recalled, with figures last year of more than 75% of the pre-Covid level and this year already at pre-pandemic levels.
Abinader arrives in Davos to participate in the World Economic Forum
The Davos Forum report notes that Although international tourism and business travel in general are still below pre-pandemic levels, the recovery of the sector has been driven by higher vaccination rates, the lifting of health restrictions and the growing demand for tourism. interior and nature.
“Government, business and civil society leaders can address the barriers to recovery by looking at the different factors that can support the long-term development and resilience of their respective travel and tourism economies,” said Lauren Uppink, Director of Aviation , Travel and Tourism at the World Economic Forum.
Abinader left for Switzerland to expose experience handling COVID and economic recovery
