It’s no secret that the Dominican Republic had its best year ever for tourism arrivals in 2022, easily eclipsing its pre-pandemic record and passing 7 million annual visitors. 

But the Caribbean’s most popular destination is showing no signs of slowing down. 

Quite the opposite, in fact. 

Tourism arrivals to the Dominican Republic last month surged last month — with just under 657,000 arrivals in January, the most ever for January in the destination’s history. The total actually eclipsed last year’s previous record by a whopping 27 percent. It was also 19 percent higher than January 2019, which had held the previous record. 

“”The challenge in 2023 is to surpass ourselves, after the extraordinary results of 2022, and we are achieving it,” said Dominican Republic Tourism Minister David Collado. 

Punta Cana remains the country’s most-visited airport, with nearly 406,000 visitors last month, followed by Santo Domingo’s Las Americas International Airport, with about 141,000 visitors. 

Hotel occupancy was at an outstanding 78 percent last month, led by La Romana at 84 percent and Punta Cana-Bavaro at 83 percent. By comparison, hotel occupancy was 71 percent in January 2022. 

The country is also seeing resurgent cruise growth: last month, 273,845 cruise passengers arrived to the country’s ports, up 191 percent compared to January of last year – an all-time record for cruise tourism in the Dominican Republic, regardless of month. 

The 112 cruise calls also represented a new record, including the nearly-7,000 passenger Wonder of the Seas, which visited the Dominican Republic’s Taino Bay port last month. 

For more, visit the Dominican Republic.