David Collado Recognized at Chicago Salsa Bachata Festival

“We are pleasantly surprised to see how the Minister of Tourism directs his management based on the statistics of the results obtained in the country thanks to tourism.”

At the tenth version of the “Chicago Salsa Bachata Festival”, held at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare Chicago, Dominican official David Collado was recognized for being the first Minister of Tourism to take bachata to international fairs where the Dominican Republic is presented as a tourist destination.

Rudi López, organizer and host of the event which brought together the main Bachata dancers of the United States, said that Collado was recognized for masterfully driving the locomotive of tourism development in the Dominican Republic and leading it to exceed 10 million tourists and visitors by December 2023.

He added that all international bachata instructors, schools and event organizers around the world are ready to board his locomotive and contribute to the next goal by embracing cultural tourism to surpass 15 million tourists and visitors in the next two years to the country.

“We are pleasantly surprised to see how the Minister of Tourism directs his management based on the statistics of the results obtained in the country thanks to tourism,” said Lopez during the recognition.

Lopez, who is also director of the PopiWa bachata dance school in the Dominican Republic, took advantage of the moment to present a statistical summary of bachata’s numbers in both music and dance, which is currently surpassing billions of views on the different broadcasting platforms and collecting millions of dollars, evidencing that the Dominican Republic is a cultural industry of global impact thanks to the contagious rhythm of bachata.