Dominican Republic Visitor Arrivals Set First-Half Record

The Dominican Republic set a first-half arrivals record with 7.18 million passengers moving through the nation’s airports between January and May, according to officials at the country’s civil aviation agency.

After several years as the most popular Caribbean destination among American travelers, the Dominican Republic’s 2023 arrivals represent a 17 percent year-over-year increase, said Junta de Aviación Civil (JAC) officials quoted in a Dominican Today report.

JAC has implemented “a comprehensive set of measures aimed at increasing traveler flows to and from the country,” said José Marte Piantini, JAC’s president. Piantini said the Punta Cana International Airport hosted the most travelers during the first five months of 2023, with 4,069,335 passengers.

Las Américas International Airport in Santo Domingo was second with 2,062,795 passengers; the Punta Cana and Santo Domingo airports accounted for 83 percent of the total passenger traffic in and out of the country, Piantini said.

Meanwhile, the Cibao International Airport in Santiago de los Caballeros hosted 772,692 passengers, while the Puerto Plata International Airport served 362,421 passengers during the same period this year.

The JAC data follows the Dominican Republic’s booming first-quarter visitor arrivals, during which the country reported 2,076,171 overnight, land-based visitor arrivals, according to David Collado, the Dominican Republic’s tourism minister.

The first-quarter arrivals represent an 11 percent increase compared with 2019, a 190 percent increase over 2021, and a 21 percent increase over 2022, Callado said in a Dominican Today report.

The Dominican Republic also established a new first-quarter record for overall visitors as 806,527 cruise passengers accompanied the period’s air arrivals, totaling 2,882,698 visitors.

Collado predicted the Dominican Republic will host 7.8 million tourists in 2023, exceeding the record 7.54 million visitors the country hosted in 2019.