The Dominican Republic keeps recording positive tourism numbers recovering from the drop in demand in early 2013. In August the nonresident passenger arrivals to the country increased by 6.47% compared to the same month in 2012. 376,465 visitors came to the country in August which is an increase of 22,886 tourists.
According to the numbers provided by the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic the arrivals of nonresident Dominicans also showed a positive increase of 1.74%, after several months of decreasing numbers.
The Central Bank indicates that the rate of growth of foreign tourist flow in terms of trend-cycle has been increasing consistently since March, reaching 6.4% at the end of August. With respect to the tourist numbers during January-August 2013, the arrivals of non-resident visitors totaled 3,307,568, for a cumulative growth rate of 1.42%, which in absolute terms is equivalent to 46,391 additional visitors compared to the same period in 2012.
Until August of this year the country received a total of 3,624,589 residents and non-residents, an increase of 38,416 passengers, which when compared to the same period last year is equivalent to a variation of 1.07 percent.
According to the Central Bank, the source markets for international tourists in August were – North America that represented 56.09% of tourists, Europe 26.88%, South America 11.66%, while Central America and the Caribbean, Asia, and the rest of the world had a share of 5.37%.
In the analysis of the absolute variation of the flow of tourists by country of origin it shows that those who had the biggest volume of visitors were the United States (19,450), Canada (4,521), Chile (2,083), Argentina (1,449), and Brazil (1,441).
During the period of January-August of 2013, the arrivals of nonresident tourists from North America represented 59.94% of all travelers, which in absolute terms meant an additional contribution of 92,594 people.
The South American region was also an important source market, showing an increase in foreign tourist arrivals of 5,261 visitors, coming particularly from Chile (10,442), and Brazil (5,910).
Europe showed a decrease in absolute terms of 30,970 tourists due to the economic turndown which is affecting much of the region. However, some European countries experienced growth in the number of visitors – Germany (15,108), Russia (14,318), Sweden (5,878), and UK (4,219), partially mitigating the reduction of tourists from that market.