At World Travel Market 2025, the Dominican Republic’s Vice Minister of Tourism, Jacqueline Mora, celebrated “the crucial role that travel agents… play” in maintaining the UK’s status as the destination’s top European source market
The UK's importance has already translated to over 150,000 visitors making the journey to the Dominican Republic so far this year (from January to September), perhaps a relatively small fraction of the 11.2 million visitors overall, but enough to rank the UK as the continent’s top source market.
Vice Minister Mora unpacked the visitation so far this year. “Visitors from the UK are staying an average of 12 nights… satisfaction levels remain very high, with travellers rating the destination 4.3 out of 5, and 85% indicating they would return.
“We are seeing particularly positive trends in family travel, which represents 37% of total arrivals, reflecting the destination’s strengthened offering for multi-generational experiences.”
The rise of the family traveller is part of a wider piece “to keep [the] destination fresh, competitive, and appealing to new visitors.”
Recent investment projects include “the creation of a modern and highly functional road network that efficiently connects all key tourism regions… we continue to invest in the renovation of roadways and beaches, as well as the preservation of Santo Domingo, all of which are vital to the enhancement of our tourism product.”
Mora hopes those efforts translate to maintaining the Dominican Republic’s status as “a destination that both loyal and first-time travellers want to return to.”
The growing success in attracting visitors from the UK while also diversifying the type of visitation to the island destination makes the UK “a highly strategic market for the Dominican Republic."
As such, the tourism ministry and its public-facing Dominican Republic Tourism brand treat agents as an “extremely important” funnel. The DO rewards programme facilitates “continuous engagement,” and rewards agents with £5 rewards for every five nights booked. The platform has also allowed periodical “incentives, exclusive updates… more than 97 roadshows around the world, specialised training days, and facilitated fam trips, because it is vital that our partners become true experts in selling our destination.”
Vice Minister Jacqueline Mora was speaking at World Travel Market, which took place in London from November 4th to 6th, 2025.
