Dominican Health Tourism Association supports reopening of the tourism sector

• Countries that best manage COVID-19 locally, with high patient recovery rates, lower fatality rates and greater available healthcare capacity, will have differentiating factors that make them more competitive and attractive to travellers and investors.

 

The global tourism sector has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in loss of life and jobs, bankruptcies, and travel and tourism restrictions, said Dr. Alejandro Cambiaso, president of the Dominican Health Tourism Association (ADTS).

Against this backdrop, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to join forces to develop protocols and take joint action to relaunch the sector and its sub-sectors in a phased and safe way.

This new reality and global and local effort challenges us to be innovative and launch various pilot projects, such as immunity passports, health passports and medical checkpoints at airports and strategic areas, among others, said Dr. Cambiaso.

 

“The medical tourism sector, together with its internationally accredited centres, is joining in to guarantee healthy tourism experiences that allow us to protect and promptly assist our visitors,” stressed the healthcare quality management specialist.

 

Cambiaso said that countries that best manage COVID-19 locally, with high patient recovery rates, lower fatality rates and greater available healthcare capacity, will have differentiating factors that make them more competitive and attractive to travellers and investors, and the Dominican Republic is among this privileged group.

He also said that the experience of international hotel chains, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Health, the Hotels and Tourism Association (ASONAHORES), Food and Drug Administration guidelines and the standards of local and international health bodies formed the basis for drawing up protocols for reopening the tourism sector.

 

However, we must be careful not to create regulations so difficult to implement or so rigid that they become absurd obstacles to healthy economic and tourism development, turning hotels and tourist accommodation into veritable all-inclusive prisons, said Cambiaso, a medical tourism specialist certified by the Medical Tourism Association (MTA).

The co-author of the Dominican Republic Health and Wellness Tourism Guide said that as a country we have worked with relative consensus, despite a complex political scenario, and have managed to tackle the pandemic intelligently, with epidemiological results we can now show and for which the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has recognised us.

He added that the country has formed a timely public-private partnership and designed strategic planning, which must be flexible by area and in response to outbreaks, without moving from one easing phase to the next before we are ready.

There is positive news to share: we are carrying out research on COVID-19 treatments with optimistic preliminary results and, despite differing opinions in the scientific community, we are encouraged to see our patients doing better.

Showing his optimism, Dr. Cambiaso said: “I believe in the resilience of our economic and tourism sector. These will clearly be challenging and difficult times, but we will stay afloat and come out stronger. Soon tourists will enjoy our natural, cultural, culinary and leisure attractions, as well as our greatest asset, our human warmth, which will make itself felt in creative ways while respecting the required social distancing,” he added.

“I am convinced that as the tourism sector recovers, with the support of government, the private sector, the health sector and a collective will for progress and sacrifice, the Dominican economy and medical tourism will also grow stronger,” said Cambiaso.

He also highlighted that the Dominican Republic is a recognised tourism powerhouse, recently named the best destination in the Americas and among the top 13 destinations in the world. We receive more than 6 million tourists a year, and in 2018 we treated 117,275 international patients, 47,725 for health tourism and more than 69,550 for tourist medicine.

The Dominican Health Tourism Association supports the restart of safe tourism

Dr. Cambiaso concluded by stressing that the Dominican Health Tourism Association supports the restart of safe tourism and advocates a national development strategy for the medical tourism sector, considering it key to establish a National Health Tourism Council to drive decisively and intelligently the reinsertion, investment and competitiveness of health tourism as a pillar that will bring jobs, foreign currency, technology transfer and innovation for national development.