what key markets, prostitution of young women or the exporting of cocaine , still 78% of the country makes less than 15,000 pesos and the cost of fuel is more than what it is in the united states and we own 51% of a refinery. UNFUKN BELIEVABLE!!!!!!

WOW, it looks like someone don't like the truth

First of all, it's a shame both Danny00 and RobertoJose do not realize that they have gone way off topic. Secondly, the comments that are posted on a daily basis by the both of them are nothing more than their own sorry pitiful reflections.

"Nearly one million 400 thousand tourists from Europe visit Dominican Republic every year"....... and yet the Education system is horrible, more than a third of the country's total population lives in poverty and the corrupt Government is constantly stealing from the people.

I guess good news only goes so far.

First of all, it's a shame both Danny00 and RobertoJose do not realize that they have gone way off topic. Secondly, the comments that are posted on a daily basis by the both of them are nothing more than their own sorry pitiful reflections.

so what would u like me to say? u want me to be happy when they lie the government?
where the hell is the money for the schools?. every thing is so good why are so many without?
where the hell is the luz? where is the real police depts?
why do all the good people need to live behine bars in their homes?
its the crooks that should be looking out from the bars not the good people. i will be very postive when their is something to be postive about. iam not off the target iam have my sights on the crooks in the government and i have 20/20 vision.

YumKum, " I'm glad you noticed "
And leo is a Kumquat ,

is danny O' wrong when he mentions the BAHA MAR project
Leona has been a president for HOW MANY YEARS , no one can't tell me, leo didn't know about that project, but, he is to busy taking his buddies on pointless trips around the world.

The Dominican republic can't afford computers for its police precents, the last time i read , the police had to go to a cormado and pay airtime for the use of a computer to email the STATEs for info on a fugitive...... And they say DR is CONQUERING......

You might as well blow your nonsense out your YOU KNOW WHAT.

YumKum,
Explain the key markets that the DR is conquering. Lets see who's side you're on, my feathered friend.

Mine your business or maybe THIS IS YOUR BUSINESS.....Hmmmmmmm

@RobertoJose

The teniente has the precinct PC at home downloading XXX material.

He learned from DEA.

Yumnuk3 yes you are right ,,the topic was the key markets for the DR in tourism ..judging by the figures we are doing well especially when coupled with all the news about extra flights ..we just have get the NW to rejig their tourist industry so they can benefit also

I wonder where Dominican tourism minister Francisco Javier Garcia gets his figures from? His own sycophantic staff? I would like to see some independent figures that where not supplied by the DR government in the first place.

I have stayed in a number of tourist locations over the last 18 months. Clearly tourism in the north coast is not increasing and in the south coast definitely declining.

Statistics are like bikinis -
What they reveal may be interesting, but what they hide is vital!

For example ten tourists who fly in then out the following day would ¨count¨ as twice that of five tourists staying for a few weeks each.

Maybe it shows that our government exaggerates more than the governments of France, Spain, Germany, Russia and Italy.

According to the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2008 ( I could not find a later report) DR does not even get a mention in the top 20 countries in the world, or the top 10 countries in the Americas.

¨During the event Garcia met with the top executives of the airlines which land on Dominican soil, to discuss the high fuel prices, ¨

I hope he understood it when they explained the airlines do not set the price of fuel. His staff could have told him that and saved DR taxpayers the cost of his German holiday. Maybe the airlines will now buy fuel from DR´s bio-fuel industry. Sorry I forgot - we don´t have one! Still we are getting a new Gatorade factory!

Danny00 and RobertoJose,

As always both you guys prove that logic is not your forte. LOL.

When a government officials talks, who cares what he says. It's all BS.

Kenny,
What do you know, you're to busy ridding other peoples coattail.

Am I to stay shut when something doesn't make any sense, I'm still waiting for someone to mention the key markets DR is conquering.

@RobertoJose,
I too would like to know the key markets DR is conquering. Anyone?

@tomito, you asked
but what was Australia's " world famous" native music again? The Cangaroo Dance ?
CANGAROO, an acronym for Collaboration of Australia and Nippon (Japan) for a GAmma Ray Observatory in the Outback, is an international collaboration for the Gamma-ray Astrophysics, aiming to study the existence and properties of very high energy gamma rays from celestial objects in the southern sky by using imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes at Woomera, Australia.
There is no real ¨native¨ Austraian music since Aborigines arrived long before the development of music.
You were comparing Merengue and Bachata with Salsa and Reggee. No contest! Regardless none of then are ¨native¨ music - your forefathers exterminated the Caribbean natives - Tainos and Caribs remenber?
¨our crash rate is similar to China, & India,¨
No surprise, - I have driven there too and they have terrible drivers just like here in DR.

Sorry to jump in so abruptly, but I think we just need to be more nuanced and critical of these categorical claims by the media and the government that something is categorically "good" or "bad." At the risk of going off topic, it's like the record profits by the banking or telecom industried reported in the papers... I don't see said profits benefiting the working class, I just see these sodding elites going off to miami for shopping, or importing gas-guzzlers that consume resources, damage the environment, and endager everyone else.

Growth is one factor, distribution of said growth is another...

With that said, I'm far from being against growth in the private sector, however, there needs to be an explicit mechanism to ensure a fairer distribution of resources, else we're heading to a similar instability as we're seing in many parts of northern africa and the middle-east.

Since I'm on my soap box- we also need better governacne!

RJ,
Most people are booking vacations to Punta Cana. Now more than ever.

The first place they should start fixing, is Calle Conde. This is the first street or boardwalk that everyone see’s. If you want middle class and upper-class Dominican’s and the few tourists who are left to visit the Colonial Zone, you better start fixing it up. After this is done you work your way to the side streets. You don’t put “the horse before the cart”. Calle Conde needs big shade trees, not those little trigs you see out there. Nice upscale park benches, beautiful tropical flowers, replace those old dirty tiles with nice turquoise tiles like you see in Old San Juan Puerto Rico, and not the white tiles that look horrible after one week’s time. They let the Zone determinate, so they could buy the properties cheep, but enough is enough. Don’t fix it and there will be no tourist. Years back, you could not see 20 feet in front of you, now you can see from the beginning to the end of the Conde.

The Zona is definitely fixable BUT there is a bigger problem. There is too small of an upscale class to support upscale restaurants. You cannot build and high quality restaurant industry on on cruize ship a week. There have to be nice restuarants which have local patrons to survive. The DR desperately lacks the desposable income at the average middle class level. Secondly the problem is that there is no Domnican Cuisine to build a history on. I went to the most highly recommended seafood restaurant of El Conde just months ago and they could not provide with any entre with shrimp. They simply did not have shrimp at all and as I pointed to three different dishes on their menu of shrimp they said NO. I for fresh fish options and they basically told me I could have the soup or I could have the soup. Very very NO GOOD to be a seafood restaurant with no seafood.

The reality is, Santo Domingo is not a tourist destination. The north coast is. Many tourists do not even pass through the capital. Take a walk along the seafront and you will see why.

There are fabulous coral cliffs and wonderful little beaches, with flat grassy areas with shady almond trees, coconut palms and flowering plants. Plenty of sunshine, a gentle tropical breeze and waves breaking over coral reef further out. I don´t know any capital city that has such assets.

However the cliffs are covered in rags, the beaches covered in PET bottles and Styrofoam fragments, raw effluent flowing into the sea and the grass almost buried in litter and hobo lean-toos. The should of the waves and gentle tropical breeze is drowned out by thundering trucks, the blast of their air horns, and CVs playing Hip-Hop noise at 95 dB.

The only ¨tourist¨ facility was a toothless old witch offering a blow-job for a few cigarettes. Fortunately I don't smoke.

Santo Domingo could be a wonderful tourist destination if it were inhabited by foreigners (as on the north coast) and not by Dominicans.

In October last year I joined the environmental group VidaAzul and cleaned up one of the beaches. I returned the following week and it was back to normal, except for a big pile of black plastic bags full of the rubbish awaiting collection. Despite a number of telephone calls and emails, they they are still there!

If you are interested, go along to VidaAzul´s yearly spin-fest. If it is like last year, the environment minister will be there leading the spin.

Amigos y Amigas!

Se parte de la FUNDACION VIDA AZUL y de nuestra pasión de proteger nuestros ríos, playas y océanos!

Estamos buscando gente motivada y con pasión que quiera formar parte de la FUNDACION VIDA AZUL en las siguientes áreas:

-Logística y Operaciones

-Mercadeo y Publicidad

-Legal

-Finanzas

-Relaciones Públicas

-Reclutamiento y Voluntarios

-Área Técnica

-Tecnología


Estaremos hablando de las múltiples oportunidades que tiene la Fundación de aportar tu talento y trabajar en proyectos de vital importancia para la protección del Medio Ambiente.

A las 6:00 p.m. en el salón de eventos de la Librería Cuesta este martes 22 de Marzo.


ALLA NOS VEMOS!!

Unfortunately I cannot attend as I will be flying back to Australia. Okay, you can stop cheering - I know many here think that Australia only has kangaroos, but we do have the internet too!