Top Dominican Republic tourism leaders advocate for incentives to compete

Several of the major entrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic’s tourism industry defended the need to maintain the incentives for their sector, contemplated in the Law for the Promotion of Tourism Development (158-01), so that the country can continue to be competitive with other destinations that apply the same strategy.

At the 62nd anniversary celebration of the Association of Hotels and Tourism (Asonahores), they favored the modification of the regulation to eliminate vices and tax platforms that, like Airbnb, operate without paying taxes. Frank Rainieri, founder of the Puntacana Group and former president of Asonahores, considered that the sector’s situation is the same as that of the free trade zones, whose investors would leave for other countries if tax facilities were taken away.

“I am a believer that this is not a law of incentives; it is the one that allows us to compete in the international market, because we do not sell to the national market anything more than a minimum part,” he explained. He indicated that “for him, to eliminate the incentives would be for the country like shooting itself in the foot.” “That the law has been abused? Yes, it is true. So, whoever abused, punish him. But that does not mean that we should simply erase a law that allows us to compete with the rest of the world and, especially, with our neighbors”, reflected Rainieri. He assured that in the Caribbean region there are more countries trying to develop tourism that are looking at the model of the Dominican law of competitiveness to elaborate their own, according to Diario Libre.