Puerto Rico is seeking wider bilateral cooperation with the Dominican Republic and other Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands in the area of tourism with the view of eventually reaching regional agreements and strategies in the face of such challenges as the commercial airline crisis in the United States.

Puerto Rico has successfully established the corporate and business segment of tourism while the Dominican Republic has excelled in the leisure area...

In this context, Terestella González Denton, Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Tourism Company (CTPR), pondered the growth of sustainable tourism and diversity of Dominican tourism, which is perceived in her country as a model industry in many aspects, according to the Dominican Tourism Ministry.

 “While we are initiating conversations, looking at what opportunities are available, analyzing the situation of the airline crisis, we believe we can establish ties and cooperation agreements between the two countries,” said Ms. González Denton following a meeting with her Dominican counterpart, Tourism Minister Félix Jiménez.  

 "Puerto Rico has successfully established the corporate and business segment of tourism while the Dominican Republic has excelled in the leisure area with its well-established European tourism as we attract tourists mostly from the United States. As such, our niches are different but we can also learn a lot from the Dominican nation. We are eagerly developing leisure tourism in that this type provides [visitors] more time in the destination and therefore has a greater impact on the country’s economy,” she explained.

She pointed out that Puerto Rico needs to increase its lodging capacity “which will help us strengthen areas of the market that, up until now, we have not paid as much attention to as we should have, such as the European and Latin American market because Puerto Rico has relied too much on the US market.”

With this objective in mind, she added, “we have undertaken the goal of adding 5,000 [hotel] rooms over the course of four years beginning in 2005 through 2009. We are developing more diversified products through ecotourism, countryside tourism, providing small and medium-sized hotels and revitalizing the urban centers and integrating the communities, creating the foundation for a new type of tourism.”

In the face of the crisis, with such companies as American Airlines which has its hub or regional base, in Puerto Rico, Gonzalez said they are looking for alternative airlines in order to respond to the eventual cuts in flights and drop in seating availability.

In Puerto Rico, tourism represents 7% of the GDP and employs around 60,000 people. Last year, some 5.7 million people visited the island, 1.4 million of whom arrived on cruise ships. “We have maintained a constant growth of 1 or 2 percent of annual tourism development,” she added. On the other hand, only 55,547 Puerto Ricans visited the Dominican Republic in 2007.

In her first visit to the DR, the Puerto Rican Tourism Minister was accompanied by Marisol Navas, CTPR Director of Sales for Latin America, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico.

Terestella González Denton, Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Tourism Company (CTPR) and Dominican Tourism Minister Félix Jiménez during the meeting.