Sprawl can distance goal of 10M tourists, Hoteliers warn

Santo Domingo.- Hotels and Tourism Association (Asonahores), president Joel Santos, on Tues. said that to reach the goal of 10 million tourists the country’s tourism destinations must be organized, with properly defined areas of use to prevent sprawl.

“If a destination isn’t developed in an orderly manner, the risk of sprawl is important, especially since we have to manage important resources such as water, solid waste and treatment plants,” the business leader said, quoted by diariolibre.com.

Santos said order is required to develop the country’s tourist destinations. “We need zones properly defined as to what their use will be and above all that tourism’s sustainability is becoming increasingly important, especially if we’re looking ahead to the future.”

He stressed that what most affects their sector is the lack of a properly elaborated territorial zoning law.

“The tourist destinations must be organized, and always endure that there are no problems in the sector, that the areas are properly defined and what their use will be, because our intention is to go from the 80,000 rooms at the close of this year, 125,000 or 130,000 rooms achieve in a few years that will allow us to receive 10 million tourists,” Santos said.

He added that to reach that milestone, “there has to be in an orderly, and organized manner, and not that we’re going to be left with a sprawl that ends up affecting the existing offer.”