Zurich, Switzerland. – The Minister of Tourism of the Dominican Republic, David Collado, led a meeting this Thursday with Swiss travel agents and tour operators to promote the progress of the different tourism destinations in the country and strengthen ties in favor of tourism growth in the Dominican Republic.
David Collado traveled from Berlin where he was participating in the German International Tourism Exchange, ITB Berlin 2024, to take advantage of its proximity to Switzerland on the southern German border to travel to Zurick and meet with about 150 tour operators and travel agents to talk about the story of recovery of the Dominican tourism industry and the new bets of the destination.
With 4% of European tourists from Switzerland, Switzerland ranks as the seventh largest source of tourists to our Caribbean paradise, said the official to explain that working hand in hand with travel agents from this central European country showed the best of the Dominican Republic and strengthened its ties with those actually responsible for sending tourists to the Caribbean country.
“Every Swiss visitor is part of our tourism success story. We celebrate the 42,514 Swiss tourists who visited us in 2023 and we predict the growth of that number for this year 2024,” said the Dominican Minister of Tourism, David Collado, when socializing the meeting on his X channel, former .
Collado shows the recovery process of the Dominican Republic destination
During the roadshow, David Collado gave a historical tour of how the Dominican Republic emerged successfully from the pandemic, recovering the tourism industry in record time.
He recalled step by step a success story to replenish the industry that was completely stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic and reviewed the innovative actions taken by the government together with the private sector while the world closed in the midst of adversity.
He said that although Switzerland is the economic capital of Europe, the Dominican Republic is the tourism capital of the Caribbean and that is why it is his visit to present how it is evolving as a tourism destination.
With a brief talk and some short documentary videos, he consolidated his ideas by showing the natural beauties and cultural resources of destinations such as Santo Domingo and its Colonial City, moving on to La Romana, Casa de Campo and all its attractions with luxury villas, fields of golf, polo fields, tennis courts and diverse cuisine and luxury hotels.
From La Romana he showed Bayahíbe explaining that here, next to the Caribbean Sea, they will find a more bohemian tourism with blue flag beaches and a gastronomy enriched by the Italians who came to visit and fell in love with the place. He then described what destinations such as Punta Cana and Samaná contain and their beaches and mountains similar to the Swiss landscape.
He talked about the strengthening of tourist infrastructure in the Dominican Republic and then explained the commitment to diversifying its tourism, working to promote luxury tourism, cultural tourism, gastronomic tourism and, above all, sports tourism since the country has the largest number of golf courses in the entire region, PGA certified golf courses and only here a PGA tournament is held in Punta Cana with the Rainieri family.
He confessed to being a tennis lover and a follower of Rafael Nadal, but he recognized former Swiss player Roger Federer as the best player, the most decent, the gentleman in the world, which generated applause from the public.
The Minister of Tourism said that the country does not want to remain protected by what it has achieved, but that new destinations are currently being developed, referring to places like Miches where important international chains and prominent local businessmen such as the Rainieri family are preparing to Opening your hotels in an organized, resilient, environmentally friendly destination will be a global example.
He spoke about Puerto Plata with Punta Bergantín, in the south of the country with Pedernales and the renovation of the entire historic center of Santo Domingo and the country in a plan that prepares the Dominican Republic to be an always innovative, strong and resilient destination.
Motivating Swiss agents with the DO Travel Rewards,
The roadshow was opened by Rebeca Fernández del Pino, director of the destination loyalty program of the Dominican Republic, DO Travel, a global initiative that was born by and for travel agents who sell the DR destination that aims to inform, build loyalty and strengthen the relationship with travel agents.
Fernández del Pino spoke about incentives such as raffles, exclusive discounts, special offers and a cash bank of one euro for each night per tourist sold to any tourist spot in the country.
He spoke to them about the options of participating in press trips, in a seminar training program, Webinar, about new routes, new tourist destinations, tourism niches that the Dominican Republic has.
He highlighted the importance of travel agents and tour operators despite the boom in automatic reservation platforms and revealed that the Ministry of Tourism conducted a survey among more than 50 thousand visitors who arrived on the Dominican coasts, which showed that 32% of visitors He made his reservations through agencies and tour operators.
“If we put it in contact with the 10 million visitors who arrived in the DR in 2023, we can say that 3.3 million visitors made their reservations through a travel agent or agency,” said Fernández del Pino.