Santo Domingo.- Although the Dominican capital is the largest urban development in the Caribbean region and doesn’t offer sun and beach tourism, it does boast business, culture and history as its main potential.

The capital city is not only the region’s center for big transactions, it also hosts major international events, including by the most important multinationals, held in its many good hotels.

But the development of business tourism has limited possibilities in the capital, which lacks a convention center with a capacity for many people for events with a regional scope.

For National Hotels and Tourism Association (Asonahores) spokesman Arturo Villanueva, Santo Domingo’s tourism should be cultural as well as business, but notes that to develop the latter Santo Domingo needs more than just the few salons in the hotels, used mostly by local companies. “It’s not possible to promote it at the international level, except for a few low magnitude events, because there aren’t real facilities of salons.”

He said although the private sector and the government have been mulling the constructing of a convention center in the Capital for years, there’s still nothing concrete, and regrets the country’s lost opportunities to stage big business events and attract more tourists.

For Santo Domingo Clúster coordinator Luis Emilio Molina -who agrees with Villanueva on the need for a convention center- the capital’s good hotels and competitive personnel make it an excellent place for business tourism. “There are excellent hotels in Santo Domingo and are prepared to receive tourists, what it needs is a convention center.”

The capital has around 48 hotels members of Asonahores, which groups big and small ones, and which have salons used to stage low level business meetings.

Villanueva said Santo Domingo has more than 200 good restaurants, which in his view attracts tourism to the Capital, whose Colonial Zone, the first ion America, is the most exploited.

STATISTIC

Last year 4.12 million visitors arrived via Dominican Republic’s several international airports, 132,240 more tourists than in 2009, a growth of 3.31%.