The World Travel Awards have nominated the Dominican Republic 13 different categories in the 2024 edition.
The winners will be announced on May 19, 2024 in Jamaica.
The country has five notable nominations in the ‘Destination’ category:
- Leading adventure tourism destination in the Caribbean
- Leading beach destination in the Caribbean
- Leading cruise destination in the Caribbean
- Leading natural destination in the Caribbean
- Leading sports tourism destination in the Caribbean
In addition, this category carries a special award called ‘Leading Caribbean Tourism Board’, which honors exceptional efforts made to market the location to attract tourists and maintain competitiveness.
In addition, The awards recognized three Dominican companies in three categories related to tourism and transportation, as well as six Dominican hotel complexes in four categories.
In 2023, the Dominican Republic broke all previous records for tourist arrivals, boasting bragging rights the largest number of Caribbean visitors and overnight guests ever recorded.
The country expects to receive more than 2.3 million tourists in the first quarter of 2024.
Officials report that the country received more than a million visitors by air and sea as recently as January. most of whom were American citizens.
Last but not least, David Collado, the Minister of Tourism, gave assurances that the government, industry and academic institutions are working together to reduce the effects of sargassum on the coasts of the Dominican Republic.
“We are working intensively to find a short, medium and long term solution to this problem that affects the beaches, and not only in the Dominican Republic,” he said after a cabinet meeting to combat sargassum.
He added that the minister would provide the country’s universities with $1 million to support sargassum research.
Miguel Ceara Hatton, Cabinet Coordinator and Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, announced that a group has been created to monitor sargassum on a daily basis. It will report to the Cabinet on how it plans to achieve its objectives and seek solutions in the near future.
