Powerful tourist resurgence in the Dominican Republic: close to 5 million visitors in 2021

 In December, a record of 700 thousand visitors was achieved

They highlight the accelerated recovery of the country’s economic engine

In the last month of 2021, the Dominican Republic surpassed the barrier of 700,000 monthly tourists for the first time in its history, with total entries of 728,335 non-residents, becoming the highest monthly figure ever recorded in the history of Dominican tourism (8% above March 2019, the month with the second most significant influx of tourists, reported the Tourism Cabinet.

“From January to December 2021, 4,995,412 non-residents entered the country, as a result of a normalization of the influx of tourists to the prepandemic levels that has been observed since last September,” added the entity.

The Cabinet indicated that the performance seen during the last month of 2021 represented an improvement of 109% compared to December 2020, 17% higher than December 2019, and even positioning itself 11% above December 2018.

“In sum, during the past year, 77% of the non-residents received from January to December 2019 recovered,” he added in a meeting led by the president, Luis Abinader; the Minister of Tourism, David Collado, and the president of Asonahores, Rafa Blanco Tejera; at El Embajador, a Royal Hideaway Hotel.

The union explained that through the continuous daily survey carried out by the Mitur, more than 16,000 tourists showed a satisfaction equivalent to 4.4 stars for the destination, with the satisfaction of 5 for those who come on honeymoon. 93 out of 100 tourists enter vaccinated

Regarding the arrival of non-residents in 2021, the highlighted entity was 74% foreigners (536,001 non-residents who were not born in the Dominican Republic), and the remaining 26% were Dominicans (192,334 non-residents who were born in the Dominican Republic).

“The recovery of tourism was led at the beginning of 2021 by the absent Dominicans, who, since the end of 2020, were already beginning to arrive in the country at the same rate as they did in 2019. However, for the fourth consecutive month, the arrival of Non-resident foreigners also show figures higher than those seen in the pre-pandemic era; in fact, in December 2021, the equivalent of 127% of the non-resident foreigners who arrived in December 2019 arrived,” he said.

The data presented also indicates that December 2021 registered the highest historical number of arrival of non-resident Dominicans.

“By port of entry, the market share that the Punta Cana airport continues to gain stands out, which – with 50% of the total arrivals of non-residents during December 2021, is 23% above the levels of December 2019. The Punta Cana , Las Américas , El Cibao and Puerto Plata airports are also recovering in terms of non-resident arrivals,” he explained.

In addition, it is explained that “the international dismantling of migratory restrictions has contributed to a great extent to the recovery path of Dominican tourism. In the month of analysis, tourists resident in 165 different countries arrived in the country; in addition, 64 of our most relevant issuers (those with more than 100 passengers in December 2021) are already above December 2019, and 56 of these reached all-time highs.