Peru and the Dominican Republic cooperate to revitalize and boost tourism
Both countries exchange experiences and knowledge in gastronomic, community and sustainable tourism.
Ibero-America is well known for its tourism industry due to its vast human, environmental and cultural wealth. Although tourism contributes to the economy and has positive social impacts, it also entails certain challenges such as gentrification and the possible effects on communities’ cultural identity.
In January 2024, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) declared that 2024 would be key to travel and tourism in Latin-America, contributing with 385.9 billion USD to its GDP, exceeding the figure recorded in 2019 by more than 6%. It also estimated that, by 2034, the sector will contribute with 498 billion USD to the region’s economy, accounting for 8.3% of the regional GDP (WTTC, 2024).
Indeed, although tourism in these countries has regained strength after the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, this recovery has been uneven and requires multidimensional actions to be sustainable. In this regard, SSC is a key instrument to share experiences, improve capacities and multiply its positive effects.
In this context, Peru and the Dominican Republic —destinations known for their powerful tourism offer —approved the initiative “The inclusion of gastronomy as part of the country brand, development of gastronomic tourism and reactivation of post-pandemic tourism” in the framework of their 2022-2024 Bilateral Cooperation Program. National institutions of both countries, such as the Peruvian Export and Tourism Promotion Commission (PROMPERÚ by its Spanish acronym), the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (MINCETUR by its Spanish acronym) and the Ministry of Tourism of the Dominican Republic (MITUR by its Spanish acronym), participated in this project (Plataforma del Estado Peruano, 2023).
This bidirectional initiative had three components:
• The sustainable development of tourism in towns with a tourist vocation and/or with community participation, which included strengthening these regions, the experiences of tourism technicians and community businesses.
• The inclusion of gastronomy as part of the country brand, based on the Peruvian experience, which focused on promoting a positive national image through local gastronomy and as a differentiating feature. In addition, this component included the strengthening of value chains and the sector’s competitiveness.
• The reactivation of post-pandemic tourism in order to create strategies and policies for the revitalization of this sector from a sustainable perspective, generating incentives and also promoting the use of new means of communication for the creation of attractive content.
The implementation of this project involved several technical exchanges. For example, in April and May 2024, MITUR officials visited PROMPERÚ’s facilities to learn about the country brand and to make field visits to the Surquillo Market, the Pucllana Archaeological Complex and Site Museum and the regions of Madre de Dios and Cusco (Plataforma del Estado Peruano, 2024).
Some of the following recommendations were made to the Dominican Republic as a result of these visits:
• Strengthen the leading role of communities in tourism development.
• Diversify the tourism offer.
• Invest in training and institutional strengthening.
• Promote Dominican gastronomy as cultural heritage.
• Develop strategic partnerships.
Finally, as part of this project, Peru shared its experience in the initiative “Pueblos con encanto”, which seeks to promote the recognition of the authenticity of these places and the uniqueness of their heritage and culture. The following video highlights an example of these towns, Ollantaytambo, known as an Inca site of great patrimonial value for Peru:
March 2025
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Source: SEGIB based on the Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation (APCI by its Spanish acronym), Plataforma del Estado Peruano (2024) (2023), Ministry of Tourism of the Dominican Republic (internal document, 2024) and WTTC (2024).
