Punta Cana. The Minister of Tourism, David Collado, highlighted that the challenges facing the sector in 2025 to achieve the goal of 12 million visitors are: increasing the number of rooms, strengthening security and taking advantage of the Open Skies agreement by achieving more. air connectivity and more competitive prices.
He explained that this agreement will allow more airlines to reach the country and that Dominican airlines, such as Arajet and Sky High and others, can open routes to the United States with free competition and achieve air tickets with lower prices.
He expressed that they will continue working to improve tourist safety rates in the country.
Regarding reducing air costs, he cited the example that for a family to travel from Texas, United States to the Dominican Republic can cost six thousand dollars but to go to Mexico it would be less than two thousand dollars.
Collado offered these details when receiving today the 11 millionth visitor to the country, Mr. Bruce Pirt, coming from Ottawa, Canada on Air Transat airline flight 830 at 11:30 am, at the Punta Cana International Airport .
Collado stated this year the country will receive more than 11.2 million visitors, exceeding the established goal of 11 million.
He highlighted that in this year 2024, the sector contributed US$26 billion to the Dominican GDP, which represents 19% of the total. It generated US$10.6 billion in foreign currency this year and paid more than RD$130 billion in taxes, thus supporting the strengthening of the economy. In addition, tourism created 949 thousand direct and indirect jobs in 2024.
