The Ministry of Tourism (SECTUR) has announced that July 31 is the date upon which the National Hotel Classification System (SNCH) will be put into effect. The system will allow for regulation of the country’s hotel services and infrastructure to be in harmony with international standards.

The system will allow for regulation of the country’s hotel services and infrastructure to be in harmony with international standards.

As stated in Resolution 163-08, the SNCH nullifies all classification and categories established prior to approval of the new system, clarifying that “they are totally invalid until such time as they are classified in accordance with the new parameters,” according to a statement from the Office of Press and Communications.

It also provides that “there will be no promotion of hotel establishments in the country, whether national or international, in the publication” unless they have been duly classified and certified by SECTUR within the framework of the SNCH.

It calls on the preselected hotels “to provide the team, made up of personnel from the ECA-IQ Consortium and SECTUR technicians, with all the necessary facilities to carry out their work.”

Referring to the resolution, Tourism Minister Félix Jiménez, stated that “the categories granted to hotels and tourism accommodations have become obsolete in terms of international standards of quality.” He added that the aspects conferred by the Dominican legislature upon SECTUR instructs the organism to “promote, organize, direct, stimulate, coordinate and evaluate” the policies covered by the laws of the land and the Executive Power in terms of tourism.

The ECA-IQ Consortium was selected last February to draw up the Design and Application project of the SNCH following a legal process that began in June 2007 with the support of the National Association of Hotels and Restaurants (ASONAHORES) and the National Competitiveness Council (CNC).

The project was financed in part by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), channeled through the National Fund for Competitiveness (FONDEC).

The first to be evaluated, according to SECTUR, will be hotel accommodations, restaurants and businesses in Santo Domingo, Boca Chica, Juan Dolio, Romana-Bayahíbe, Punta Cana-Bávaro, Samaná, Puerto Plata, Río San Juan and Santiago.