CERCLE DIPLOMATIQUE - issue 03/2017

LE MONDE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Miracles of the Caribbean
Each year, between January
and March, many big cruise
ships head for the northern
Samaná Bay for a whalewatching-stopover.
FACTS &
FIGURES
Its economy is a remarkable success story all over Latin America. Its blessings of nature
and cultural heritage are providing records in tourism year after year. And its people,
especially when dancing the merengue, are turning a visit to this Caribbean country
into an unforgettable experience. Welcome to the Dominican Republic.
Text: Rainer Himmelfreundpointner
PHOTOS: FOTOLIA
On February 6th, 1998, the Austrian singer
and pop star Falco – eventually the country‘s
most outstanding musician in recent decades
who has spent his last year in the Dominican Republic
to finish a new album – has deceased after a
car crash near the city of Monte Llano in the Dominican
Republic. Up until now, some of his fans pay
tribute at a little memorial site which has been set up
there on the Caribbean island.
As sad as this lethal accident has been, it carries a
truth within that is distinctly und definitely positive
since Falco has retreated into his creative refugium
because he has fallen in love with the Dominican Republic
– its welcoming people, its diverse nature with
stunning mountains and desert scrublands, its
beaches galore, its evocative colonial architecure
and, maybe most of all, its merengue, the country‘s
typical local music and dance.
Experts say that Falco was about to integrate these
sounds of love into his latest songs, which certainly
would have made them a hit amongst the nearly seven
million visitors to the Dominican Republic who
are enjoying pretty much the same feelings. ”For
some, the idyllic beaches and all-included rum cocktails
may have their place, but for me, the Dominican
Republic is about other things“, the wide-read British
travel-blogger Ashley Harrell puts them into poetic
words. ”It‘s the wizened men puffing cigars and slapping
down dominoes by the fire atop Pico Duarte, or
dancing the merengue inside the crumbling ruins of
the New World‘s first monastery. I‘ve never felt so inspired
as when I zipped through desert hills on a
scooter, past grazing goats and drying laundry, headed
for a faraway fishing village where an ambitious
expat started a kitesurfing school.“
There is another traveller who may have been
equally enthusiastic, the day he arrived at one of the
endless, virgin shores – Christopher Columbus, today
dubbed by the natives as “the first tourist“. He
has discovered the island in 1492, giving it the name
“La Hispañola“ and starting a period of more than
four centuries under foreign rule. Between 1655 and
1701 alone, the island has been dominated by the
British, the French and the Spanish alternately. A few
decades later, in 1731, it was divided into what is today
Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which proclaimed
its First Republic in 1844.
This early period of independence found an end
in 1916 when the United States of America occupied
the Dominican Republic and governed it until 1924,
installing a puppet regime afterwards. In 1930, the
revolutionary Rafael Trujillo succeeded in a coup
d‘etat only to start a grim dictatorship which lasted
for about 30 years. Then, in 1964, the Fourth Republic
has been established and since then, the Dominican
Republic has embarked on a path of growth, stability
and remarkable development – which in recent
years even accelerated under President Danilo Medina
who has been first elected in 2012 and re-elected
last year.
In 2016, the Dominican Republic with a population
of some 10 million people has outperformed most
of the other countries in the world with an economic
growth rate of 6.6 percent, amounting to a GDP of
more than 72 billion dollars (nominal). This equals
one of the highest purchasing powers per person –
some 15.200 dollars for each Dominican inhabitant
– in Latin America and the Caribbean. Acccording
to Alexander Solar, the Austrian Commercial Counsellor
covering the Dominican Republic, this extraordinary
economic perfomance is mainly due to ”a
very strong increase in tourism“ of a record 11 percent,
while the number of Austrian tourists even has
jumped up for more than 25 per cent in 2016.
”The Dominican Republic last year reached a record
of nearly 6 million tourists, an increase of over
380,000 additional visitors“, confirms Lourdes Victoria-Kruse,
the Ambassador of the Dominican Republic
to Austria in an interview with Cercle Diplomatique
(page 45). Adds Petra Cruz, Director for
Europe of the Dominican Republic‘s Tourism Board:
”In April 2017, we have registered 15 percent more of
international visitors in relation to the same period
last year. It has been the best month in our tourism
history which really makes us extremely happy.“
Since tourism accounts for nearly two thirds of the
countries economy each and every Dominican –
who are regarded as one of the happiest people in the
world – is embracing foreigners, helping them with
every single little problem, welcoming them with all
kinds of services – no wonder the country is the epi-
Dominican Republic
Official name:
República Dominicana
Capital and largest city:
Santo Domingo
Official language: Spanish
Ethnic groups:
72.9% Mixed
16.1% White
10.9% Black
0.1% Yellow
Government:
Unitary presidential
republic
• President:
Danilo Medina
• Vice President:
Margarita Cedeño de
Fernández
Area: 48,442 km 2
Population: 10,100,000
(2016 estmate)
GDP: 72.194 billion $
(2016, nominal)
GDP per capita: 7,159 $
(2016, nominal)
Independence:
• December 1, 1821:
from Spain (ephemeral)
• February 27, 1844:
from Haiti (official), not
recognized by Haiti until
November 9, 1874
• August 16, 1863:
from Spain (restoration)
• July 12, 1924:
from the United States
(occupation)
The island which today consists of Haiti
and the Dominican Republic has been
discovered in 1492 by Columbus.
Cap Cana, with its endless
white sand beaches, is one of
the major tourist attractions
in the region of Punta Cana,
located at the eastern coast
of the Dominican Republic.
Left: Cool carriages in Santo Domingo.
Right: ”Teeth of the Dog“ – the
number 1 golf course of the Caribbean
at Casa de Campo resort in Punta
Cana.
42 Cercle Diplomatique 3/2017