The Dominican Republic Beckons

The Dominican Republic is a beautiful island which lies in the heart of the Caribbean islands, it's serene and naturally stunning beauty has made it over the years, one of the holiday seeker's most alluring places of refuge. Its sheer warmth and hospitality has made it a tourist's haven, much to the delight of the local people who have gone the extra mile to keep the estimated 3million yearly visitors like you and I coming by investing heavily in building new five star hotels, airports to handle ever increasing traffic, more and more resorts, relaxation spots, beaches and the like.

These facilities are commendably all state of the art and standard, and one would expect them to cost a small fortune but surprisingly there's also a lot of flexibility in the cost of making use of these facilities, there are facilities to match the budgets of everyone from small, medium to low, meaning we can all go ahead and have fun no matter how lean our credit cards are.

The tiny island nation has also been attracting a lot of foreign financial investments lately making it a hot destination for business executives from as far out as Europe, more especially with the setting up of the parque cibernetico (cybernetic park). The parque cibernetico is a reserved area constructed to encourage technology based investors to set up shop in the tiny island nation. Many investors now come into the islands with the intention of staying and most have massive long-term infrastructural projects in the early planning stages. Government sources revealed that direct public and private investment figures hit the $1.9 billion mark by the end of year 2005 and this figure is expected to rise yearly.

The cape Cana tourism complex is one of the numerous beneficiaries of this recent flow of investment and it has a 10year development plan with estimated investment of about a billion dollars, the complex boasts of 25,000 square kilometer of land, inclusive of about 8km of unspoiled beaches, the complex is also expected upon completion to include hotels, villas, apartment buildings, three 18-hole golf courses, and a marina. Antlantica, a collection of resorts on the islands northern regions is also underway and initial investments are expected to hit $150 million mark. Some major hotel giants also have project underway in the islands, notably the Hilton group. Already it has launched a local manages a local hotel chain called the coral hotels and it is looking to build on that undoubtedly because of the excellent tourism potentials the island holds. Hilton has also recently made a $40million dollar investment on a 21 storey 228 room edifice in the capital Santa Domingo and it is reputed to be the best in its class in the city.

The UK's Buy bonus LTD also has made plans to put in over a $100 million dollar into a new hotel project. Even as public and private investment continue to rise, the government of the Dominican Republic have also shown an even stronger resolve and determination to win even more investors over as so as to continue to provide the much needed jobs for its people. Thus it plans to leverage more on the tourism potential of the island and focus less on its more traditional source of income which used to be agricultural exports such as Sugar, Coffee and Cacao.

The Island nation's president has also pledged to invest heavily on developing the Island's basic infrastructure, focusing on transportation, highway development and rehabilitation, water treatment plants, waste treatment plants, beach rehabilitation and the like, as measures designed to bring in more tourists and ultimately more jobs