Rewrite this content and keep HTML tags, correct grammar, do not rewrite words starting with capital letters, separate the sections of text longer than 20 words
Santo Domingo, DR. – The Minister of Tourism of the Dominican Republic yesterday presented the figures that describe the success of tourism in the country throughout the year, reaching a growth of 9% compared to 2023, 32% compared to 2022 and reaching 48% more arrivals for the year 2019 pre-pandemic.
These are the five revealing figures from the 2024 Dominican Tourism Report that the Ministry of Tourism shared yesterday that allow us to visualize the milestones in the development of Dominican tourism in the year that just ended, compared to previous years.
“These results are more than numbers, it is a confirmation that we are an increasingly stronger sector, a true benchmark in world tourism,” said David Collado when presenting the statistics this Thursday at a meeting at a hotel in the capital next to the industry leadership and media.
11,192,047 visitors to the Dominican Republic in 2024
This is the total number of visitors that the Dominican Republic received between January and December of last year by air and through cruise ports. This number represents a 9% growth compared to 2023, 32% compared to 2022 and a notable growth in the arrival of visitors from the pre-pandemic year with 48% more.
The impact of tourism growth in the Dominican Republic is such that the country appears among the main world destinations with the best performance according to UN Tourism statistics for the first nine months of 2024 with 26%, ranking 13th worldwide and ranked number 6 among the countries of America.
Likewise, the Dominican Republic was ranked number 5 globally and second in the Americas within the “large destinations with the best performance, January-September 2024 of the latest World Tourism Barometer published last December.
8,535,742 Visitors by air
This is the number of tourists who arrived by air to the Dominican territory, which represented a growth of 6% compared to 2023, 19% compared to 2022 and a growth of 32% compared to the same period in 2019.
It is worth highlighting the behavior of visitors by air, of which 7,125,398 were foreigners, while 1,410,344 were Dominicans who came to enjoy their land, registering their visit as leisure.
2,656,305 cruise passengers in 2024
This is the number of cruise passengers who visited the Dominican Republic last year, a figure that represented 18% growth compared to 2023, 103% compared to 2022 and 141% compared to 2019, the pre-pandemic year during which they visited the country 1 , 552, 407 cruise passengers.
To date, seven cruise ports operate in the Dominican Republic. Amber Cove in Puerto Plata where 1,201,255 visitors arrived with a growth of 14.8%; Taíno Bay, also in Puerto Plata, which received a total of 994,609 cruise passengers throughout 2024, registering the highest growth of all with 34%; La Romana where 336,703 cruise passengers arrived, 12.7% of the total arrivals although registering a drop of -3.1%; Samaná with 1.7% of the total arrivals with 43,926 cruise passengers but registering a negative growth of -2.4%; Catalina Island received 43,760 with a huge rebound of 171.8%. 24,426 cruise passengers arrived at the Port of Santo Domingo, representing 55.5% fewer arrivals this year given the current reconstruction of the Colonial City. Finally, the figures for the Port of Cabo Rojo are recorded, which began operating last year and where 11,626 cruise passengers visited the country.
67,795 Commercial Flights
These are the commercial flights that during the 12 months of the previous year were registered by the different international airports of the Dominican Republic and that represent a growth of 2% compared to the same period in 2023 with 1,302 more flights; 14% compared to 2022 with 8,297 more flights and 16% compared to 2019 with 9,515 more flights.
The almost 68 thousand flights were operated by 64 airlines on 144 routes with an average occupancy of 79%.
The departures of these flights are led by the United States (50%), Canada (10%), Panama (6%), Colombia (5%) and Puerto Rico (5%); while the airlines that lead this variable are Jetblue (19% of total flights), American Airline (10%), Copa (7%), and Arajet (6%).
Seen in this line by airports, Punta Cana leads tourist arrivals by air to the Dominican Republic last year with 59%, Las Américas (24), Cibao International Airport (11%), Puerto Plata (5%), La Romana (1%) and the rest also accumulate 1%.
The 5 countries from where the most tourists come to the country
The growth space for Dominican tourism is immense if one sees that 75% of the total tourists who arrive in the country by air come from only 5 countries, including three Latin American countries and the United States and Canada, which are at the top of this top list. five.
This is if the growth of Dominican tourism is projected in light of world statistics, which according to the latest number of the UN Tourism Barometer of World Tourism, in the first nine months of 2024, 1.1 billion tourist trips had been registered. all over the world. So far there is room for growth in the United States, the main tourist-sending country, competing with China. Then there are Germany, the United Kingdom, France, South Korea, Japan and Canada on the list of the main tourist source markets in recent years.