ADOTURD takes its sports tourism bill to the Senate

On October 14, a bill seeking to declare sports tourism a national priority in the Dominican Republic reached the Senate. It is promoted by the Dominican Association of Sports Tourism (ADOTURD) and was presented by San Cristóbal Senator Gustavo Lara Salazar. The text is now with the Permanent Sports Committee for review. It proposes creating the National Council for the Development of Sports Tourism (CONDETUDE), a national strategy, a registry of organizations in the sector and a one-stop shop to streamline procedures for sporting events and investments. The key point for hotels: measures to encourage investment and sponsorship without new taxes or additional state spending, as reported by Dominican Today.

ADOTURD President Yerik Pérez sums it up: the country has the potential to become a leading sports tourism destination, and the proposed framework would organize the sector's growth and expand its economic benefits. The bill also calls for private-sector participation in developing and monitoring public policies, plus statistics and economic impact studies to measure the sector's real contribution. That last point should matter most to hoteliers in Punta Cana, Bávaro, Samaná and Puerto Plata: without its own figures, sports tourism competes for attention and budget against sun and beach, which already has consolidated numbers.

The reading for the industry is clear. A one-stop shop for sporting events can unlock international tournaments that are currently lost to procedures scattered across several institutions. A council with private-sector participation opens the door for hotels and tour operators to influence the events calendar, promotion and venue conditions. And the registry of organizations brings transparency to a segment where serious operators need to be told apart from improvisers.

What to watch now is the bill's path through the Senate Sports Committee and whether the text keeps its promise of no new taxes. Also whether the future CONDETUDE reserves seats for hotels and airlines, because attracting an international tournament is pointless if connectivity and hotel capacity are not at the table from day one.

The potential is there: the country already hosts golf, baseball, surf and endurance events. What was missing was a framework to organize and measure it. If the bill moves forward without new fiscal burden and with impact data, sports tourism can add a revenue line that today depends on the goodwill of each organizer.