Tourism Ministry Assists with Canoa Thermal Complex in Barahona

The Ministry of Tourism (SECTUR) has asked the Environment Ministry (SEMARENA) and the Senate to speed up the process necessary for the building of the Thermal Complex in Canoa Barahona, a project which promises to have a significant socioeconomic impact on the Southern region of the country.   

The completed project promises to have a huge socio-economic impact in the South-Eastern region, particularly in Barahona while at the same time, it will help develop a new market niche in the country: health tourism.

Tourism Minister, Francisco Javier García, requested a corresponding environmental evaluation impact study as well as other information about the project to be sent to the Environment Minister Jaime David Fernández Mirabal and the President of the Senate, Reinaldo Pared Pérez.

In the letters, Minister García stressed that the project will be localized “in a tourism area that has not yet reached its desired development level,” which will be translated into a huge advance for the area and for the Dominican Republic in general, according to the Tourism Ministry Press Office.  

A Socio-Economic Priority

The Canoa Thermal Complex Project in the municipal district of Barahona involves a global investment of $1.5 billion US dollars.   

The completed project promises to have a huge socio-economic impact in the South-Eastern region, particularly in Barahona while at the same time, it will help develop a new market niche in the country: health tourism.  

The Dominican government, through the Tourism Ministry, signed a rental protocol in 2007 for the development of tourism in the Southern area of the country with an emphasis on the province of Barahona. With it, the government seeks to increase the capacity for receiving new international tourists to the DR.

The rental protocol was made with the Salamandra Thermal Commercial Society, which is in line to build the tourism center in the city of Canoa of Barahona.

The engineer, Roberto Chetoni, is the president of the Salamandra Thermal complex. The protocol signed by the State and the Salamandra Thermal consortium establishes that the company will build the five-star Thermal and Tourism Center, to be geared toward health, cultural, artistic and gastronomical activities as well as eco-tourism, recreational pastimes, golf, and sports training, among others.   

The Canoa Thermal Complex will develop a series of and installations to be made up of buildings and structures, the final product of which will offer international quality while introducing the country to the idea of Thermal Tourism or Health and Well-Being Tourism, both of which are gaining popularity internationally.   

This type of specialized complex invites tourists to obtain therapeutic rest and relaxation in the thermal waters and to be in contact with nature, thus improving their quality of life while, at the same time, putting them in close contact the country´s culture and customs.

The thermal waters, full of minerals, spontaneously spring from the earth at a temperature of 5 degrees Celsius – higher than the surface temperature. The spring water is rich in mineral components which are used in therapeutic baths, inhalations, irrigations, heating, among other things, and which have curative properties.