With all respect to all efforts done over the last periods that the PLD was in power:

PLEASE CLEAN UP YOUR OWN HOUSE FIRST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Corruption and criminality!!!!

As long as a family with 2 little children on the highway is robbed at gunpoint by PN dressed criminals this will not be a healthy country to spend any investmenst or safe for money spending tourists.

I am outraged because it happend to my family last week on the way from Santo Domingo to Bonau.

CLEAN YOUR HOUSE FROM THIS AND THE NEGATIVE TRAVEL ADVICE WILL DISSAPEAR

The american sheeple love it here because their Department of Homeland Security is now infiltrating the Dominican Government and using it as an outpost. The american sheeple feel at home here and maintain their slavery here. IT is if they never leave their "homeland". they bring more fiat paper with them here to keep the global ponzi scheme afloat a short time longer

Rule #1 - for American (or and other foreign) tourists - stay within a gated all-inclusive resort with armed security.

Rule #2 - refer to Rule #1

What I love about the summer, is that we have "fair weather" corrupt police and military. As of late the day time temps have climbed into the 30c range and the humidity has increased making it uncomfortable for them to set up the collection boxes between Higuey and La Romana. They would rather sit close to the colmado and hassle people there.

Just don't get killed while you're there!

I am not really sure what any of these comments have to do with the article itself. Seems like this community has the same issue as 90% of Dominicans and that's that everything has to be about politics. I mean come on people, a positive article about our country turned into this garbage? how do you expect things to get better when as soon as something positive happens or is reported everyone tries to do the impossible to turn it into a negative. Simply put, there is a time and place for negativity and this is not it. Enjoy the positive, improve upon it and fix the negatives.

I have been reading these forums and articles a bit lately and there can be an article about a young person educating themselves to become something better and the comments somehow spin it as a negative just like it was done here. Stop it people, don't fill your life with so much negativity.

mcruz
onecellular

Well said @mrcruz

There needs to be a greater focus on the positive things in the DR

big thank you ..... mcruz

What positive things are there to focus on?

Roy stone one is that Americans are choosing DR before Mexico and Bahamas rember that all inclusive started in DR. And those country have a lot of experience. In the tourist business at least we talking about this and no politics like other and this is different for a change.....

Josearias,
Then all that experience doesn't count for much, because the return rate is abysmally small.

Even in a Dominican all-inclusive, US citizens can still be exposed to Dominican crime and corruption

dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2011/11/30/41810/Unprecedented-US-tourists-assault-hotel-clerk

Roystone i know just a some about this , jam not comparing Mexico neither Bahamas. To DR but the numbers of tourist is getting better Avery year according to the arrival at Punta Cana int airport.


And tourist agency

josearias,
Tourist agencies, like estate agents, never say it as it really is, and nor does the Dominican government.

Regardless, Punta Cana arrivals on their own does not mean much. It does not indicate return rates, how long they are there or what they spend, which could all be in decline.

Ok I got your point you might right too

"What positive things are there to focus on?"

Roy, you and I can look at the same goat and see different attributes and characteristics. It all depends on one's positive or negative attitudes. In other words, it's all in the eye of the beholder.
You see a smelly pigsty, I see lots of fertilizer and bacon.

"the return rate (to DR) is abysmally small."

Tell me where I can find data to back that statement.

Ron,
perhaps you can show me the positive aspects of murder, crime, corruption, over-population, illiteracy, diseases and the destruction of the environment, because I just can't see them.

Roy.
All of the aforementioned calamities and suffering can be found all over the world in varying quantities. There's no denying the DR is afflicted with a greater ill than it should.
I won't apologize or excuse those facts. These are real dangers for the stability and potential prosperity of my nation. But......
When I look at the possibilities for change (with a new governance), and the infrastructural and monetary progress gained by DR in the recent past, I see nothing but a promising, good standard of living, with solutions to all of your stated concerns.

If you ever get a chance to visit the city of Washington, DC., You'll be shocked to experience the same afflictions as in your neighborhood. In the last year alone, DC council member Marion Barry, was (again), indicted for corruption; present mayor Vincent Orange was cited for complicity to defraud the public.
the murder rate in the DC ghettos, approached 800, mostly killed by gunfire involving the drug trade.

Until the Dominican Gov. and the people in general realize the tourist industry is their main source of investment and revenue and start protecting the individual tourist as well as the industry as a whole they are leaving money on the table and loosing market share to the surrounding tourist attractions such as Bahamas, Cancun etc.

....The DC school system is in shambles. The teachers' union is too powerful to affect any changes. Meanwhile the children learn nothing, turn to drugs, and grow up to become felons for lack of a trade or profession.

Perhaps life in Melbourne does not manifests these ailments in any appreciable levels... But I can surely, if I were a pessimist, find lots of faults in the local government, environment, attitudes, woemen, climate, etc, etc.... It's all a matter of how one sees reality and deals with it. I see ample room for improvements in my land, whilst making dough in the process.
Things are looking up!

I know an acquaintance that brags about his vacations in the DR for the pupose of sex with young girls. This is one sick promoter of human trafficing. How many more are out there?

Lots! Listen to the groups of guys from NY and NJ on the planes talking about the women that they've booked online in Sosusa - all-inclusives with 24 hour a day girls that you can switch after 24 hours.
RD has become the world's wh@re house.

If the USA could find a way to tax this trade, they would and make it legal overnight