The weight of tourism in the Dominican Republic: US$31.4 million per day in consumption

Santo Domingo—Every day, the coasts, docks, beaches, roads, and businesses are visited by some 231,270 tourists passing through the Dominican Republic.

The Ministry of Tourism (Mitur) estimate also indicates that whether they stay overnight in the country or are just passing through, as is the case of visitors, non-resident foreigners generate expenditures in goods and services six times greater than Dominicans.

Such consumption generates 31.4 million dollars per day in favor of the Dominican economy, according to the data presented by the institution in its monthly report.

For this reason, the technical vice-minister of Tourism, Jacqueline Mora, explained that if the average number of tourists who travel the country daily were multiplied by the level of consumption they have, those more than 231,000 people generate an expenditure equivalent to that of a population of more than 1.2 million individuals.

“That gives a population (…) that does not receive (support from the program) Solidaridad, that are spending distributed throughout the country and that possibly have lower levels of pollution and that do not generate a negative fiscal impact,” he added.

Multiplier effect
Tourism had a robustly positive multiplier effect in 2023: more than 184,000 new jobs were directly linked to this economic activity last year.

Likewise, the sector added to the treasury more than 55,000 million pesos paid in taxes between January and December last year and more than 316,000 million pesos in public purchases, according to Diario Libre.

Last year, the activities of hotels, bars, and restaurants grew 10.7%, with the highest incidence in the national economic growth, which was 2.4% in 2023.

Therefore, authorities expect that 2.3 million tourists will arrive in the country by air in the first quarter of 2024, 11.3 % more than in January-March 2023.

In addition, they estimate that the arrival of 742,229 non-resident foreigners last January -10.3% more than in January 2023- marks an excellent start to meet this forecast.