The minister of tourism, Francisco Javier Garcia, said that the institution is willing to initiate the promotion of medical travel to the Dominican Republic.

“We are ready to establish a promotion team for all the Caribbean islands because we understand that in those territories the majority of its inhabitants have high incomes and are small markets”, he said during the launch of the Study and Diagnosis of the Health and Wellness Tourism of the Dominican Republic and pointed out that the success of Dominican tourism is due to the alliance between the authorities and private entrepreneurs and investors.

Among the keys cited to reach the market of the Caribbean islands, he highlighted:

• High incomes
• Dependence on other countries
• Small markets that inhibit them from establishing large investments

“People care more about their health than their holidays because everyone has a level of awareness of what health means, which tends to pay more attention than before”, he exclaimed.

The official was positive of the country’s potential to quadruple the number of people seeking medical tourism in the country, which according to the study in 2018 was 47,725 patients.

“The tourism ministry has the best promotion teams and work teams that promote the Dominican Republic,” the minister told hundreds of attendees.

Francisco Javier Garcia said shortly before being summoned to a presidential meeting, that if the Government is willing to dedicate efforts in this niche, it is because of the progress that health has made at a private level in the country.

“We have all the promotion offices that are abroad, we want to put them at the service of this sector,” he said.

The tourism sector offers the health sector the possibility of working on the platform of more than 30 offices work teams that promote the Dominican Republic’s destination.

He announced that they will open offices in Atlanta and Dallas in the United States, and China, which will allow greater tools to promote Dominican medical tourism.

The official mentioned that this support is a continuity of the ministry’s interest in the subject, recalling that a few years ago they created a specialized address in health tourism.

“Millions of people travel to our country, all economic sectors of the country try to link themselves in some way to tourism because it is a cross-cutting activity that positively affects sectors of the economy,” he said.

Medical care

On the other hand, the minister of Tourism indicated that within the multiple surveys that the portfolio does and those that appear in the study, the Caribbean country is distinguished because it has a level of humanization of its national doctors that it considers difficult to find it in other countries.

“Anyone can believe that the main attraction of our country is its beaches or gastronomy, but it turns out that what is most attractive is the warmth in the service of the Dominican who receives the millions of tourists who visit us,” said the official based on multiple surveys that the entity performs.

He said that the Dominican doctor establishes a dialogue with the patient and that this is cultural.

Public-private partnerships

The Minister of Tourism, Francisco Javier Garcia, see a favorable environment for the creation of public-private partnerships similar to that developed with the tourism sector to boost the niche.

He stressed that we must take advantage of the positioning of Dominican tourism by adding medical tourism, but in compliance with international accreditations and pushing everyone in the same direction and be proactive.

“There are things that we are going to correct along the way, not that we reach perfection, because we can correct, if there are areas that need to be corrected, we must correct them, “he said and added that this will determine which are the comparative advantages.