Travel to Dominican up 7.5% in January

Source: DR1 Travel News

Despite a series of snowstorms that have caused travel plan cancellations, travel to the Dominican Republic continues to grow. The Central Bank of the Dominican Republic reports that 33,833 more non-resident travelers entered the country in January 2015 compared to January 2014. Of this total 23,376 were foreigners (up 6.2%), while 8,457 were Dominican expats, or 22% more.
The Central Bank says that 96.5% of the travelers visited for recreation, 1.7% to see friends and family and 1.2% for business. 95.5% of them stayed at hotels. 57.2% were in the 21-49 age bracket, with an almost equal split of 50.5% female and 49.5% male visitors.
The Central Bank says that the average 10% growth the country has experienced over the past 16 months is explained by the recovery in the US market, the main source for travel to the Dominican Republic. Tourists from the United States prefer traveling to the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean.
Total number of arrivals at the eight international airports was 536,234 visitors, including Dominicans and foreigners.
Tourist arrivals were mainly from the United States, Canada and Mexico (57%), followed by Europe (27.6%) and South America (12.8%).
In January, 20,682 more travelers arrived from the United States. There were also increases from Brazil (4,777 more), Venezuela (3,448), Germany (3,280), UK (3,054), Spain (2,532), Colombia (1,518), Sweden (1,130), Chile (904), France (860) and Italy (858).
Only travel from Russia was down by 0.9%. There were 12,226 fewer Russian travelers in January, reflecting the recent downturn of the Russian economy.
This was compensated by increases in visitors from Germany (15.4%), UK (39.2%), Spain (27.8%), France (3%), Italy (8.9%) and Sweden (34.9%).