Dominican Senate receives bill to declare sports tourism a national priority

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic – October 14, 2024: A landmark legislative proposal that positions sports tourism as a core national strategic priority for the Dominican Republic has been formally tabled in the country’s upper legislative chamber, immediately routed to the Permanent Sports Committee for formal deliberation and review.
The bipartisan initiative, co-developed and championed by the Dominican Association of Sports Tourism (ADOTURD) and formally introduced by San Cristóbal Senator Gustavo Lara Salazar, is engineered to eliminate longstanding silos between public agencies, athletic governing bodies, and private tourism operators that have limited the sector’s untapped growth in recent years. The centerpiece of the proposed legislation is the creation of the National Council for the Development of Sports Tourism (CONDETUDE), a cross-stakeholder coordinating body designed to align policy priorities across disparate sectors.
Beyond the new interagency council, the bill outlines a suite of targeted structural reforms: a unified national 10-year Sports Tourism Strategy, a centralized public registry of all sector stakeholders ranging from local event organizers to international hospitality partners, and a single-window administrative platform to cut red tape for event permitting and foreign investment approvals. Notably, the entire policy framework is structured to spur private capital inflows and corporate sponsorships without imposing any new tax burdens on businesses or requiring incremental public expenditure from the national treasury.
ADOTURD President Yerik Pérez emphasized that the legislation fills a critical policy gap that has prevented the Dominican Republic from capitalizing on its geographic advantages, world-class coastal and mountain sporting venues, and existing global brand recognition as a top Caribbean travel destination. “We have all the raw ingredients to emerge as a global leader in sports tourism, from world-class golf courses and surfing breaks to high-altitude training facilities and event-ready stadiums, but our fragmented, uncoordinated approach to date has left us lagging behind regional competitors,” Pérez explained. The proposed framework, he added, will ensure that economic gains from the sector are distributed equitably across rural and coastal communities, rather than being concentrated exclusively in the capital’s tourism corridors.
Additional provisions embedded in the bill mandate formal private sector representation in both the drafting and ongoing monitoring of all future sports tourism policies, as well as the establishment of a dedicated data collection unit to produce standardized economic impact reports that quantify the sector’s contribution to gross domestic product, job creation, and foreign exchange earnings for the first time.