Eight of every ten foreign tourists the Dominican Republic gained in 2025 were Argentinian

The Dominican Republic closed 2025 with 8,860,709 non-resident passengers arriving by air, 3.8% more than in 2024. Of those, 7,341,745 were foreign nationals: 216,382 more than the year before.

That increase has a very specific origin. Argentina alone contributed 169,325 additional visitors. Almost eight of every ten foreign tourists the country gained in 2025 came from a single market, and it is neither of the two the destination depends on.

Where the growth came from

The figures come from the Central Bank's 2025 tourist flow report, compiled from Directorate General of Migration records. The report marks its figures as subject to revision.

The United States and Canada still make up 60.1% of Dominican foreign tourism. But the 2025 growth did not come from there. Argentina rose 62.5% in a year, followed by Colombia, Mexico (+46,159), Peru (+32,338) and Brazil (+21,374).

The subtraction you have to do by hand

This is worth pausing on, because the figures above do not add up on their own and the report does not explain it.

Adding up the increases the Central Bank details — Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Cuba, Costa Rica and Puerto Rico — gives 349,312 additional visitors. Total foreign growth was 216,382. The difference, some 133,000 visitors, must have been lost in the markets the report does not break out.

That subtraction is ours, not the Central Bank's, and it should be taken for what it is: an arithmetic inference from published data, not an official figure. What the report does state is the direction. It notes verbatim that "since mid-2024 a moderation has been evident in the air flow from these markets", referring to the United States and Canada, and puts the fall in total European visitor flow at 1.7%, cushioned by increases from Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden.

The headline of the year, then, allows a less comfortable reading: the record held because Latin America made up for what North America and Europe stopped contributing.

One in four does not sleep in a hotel

The same report includes a visitor profile that rarely makes the news. 86% travelled for recreation, and 75.7% stayed in a hotel establishment.

The remaining 24.3% is around 1.78 million people who entered the country and slept somewhere else: rental apartments, villas, the homes of people they know. It comes from a passenger survey rather than a census of beds, so it is good for the order of magnitude and not for fine detail. But the order of magnitude already says plenty in a country whose tourism is identified with the all-inclusive resort, and where Punta Cana airport handles 71.9% of foreign arrivals.

What it means for anyone with rooms

A destination that depends 60% on two markets and grows thanks to a third has two separate problems on its hands at once.

The first is information. The Argentinian who arrived in 2025 does not book like the American who has been coming for a decade: they buy further ahead or closer in, use different platforms, look at the price in another currency and decide at another point in the year. A property that only sees the bookings an online agency sends it has no way of knowing which of its markets is growing and which is easing off, because the guest's data is not its own. That lag has a cost: by the time the shift in market shows up in the accounts, the season in which the rate could have been adjusted is over.

The second is language and currency. If the property's site is only in English and only shows prices in dollars, it is built for the North American profile; the Argentinian, Colombian or Peruvian visitor who has held up the year's growth reaches that page in the worst possible conditions to book.

And the 24.3% who do not sleep in a hotel describe a different business — holiday rentals, villas, managed apartments — that needs the same pieces a small hotel does: synchronised availability, payment on its own site, and booking data of its own.

If you manage accommodation in the Dominican Republic and want to see which markets your bookings come from today and through which channel, write to us.

Sources

• Banco Central de la República Dominicana, Informe del flujo turístico 2025, National Accounts and Economic Statistics Department, Tourism Division. Compiled with Ministry of Tourism (MITUR) data originating from the Directorate General of Migration. Every arrival, source-market, airport and visitor-profile figure in this article comes from that report, which marks its 2025 data as subject to revision.