Tourism and Health Ministries Implement Strategies for Healthy and Sanity Hotel Services

The Ministry of Tourism (SECTUR) in coordination with the Ministry of Public Health announced a plan to implement a series of strategies to optimize the quality of food consumed by tourists who visit the Dominican Republic as well as a general improvement in environmental health.

“We are carrying out a labor deployment of our technical personnel to the different tourism areas in the country in which we will evaluate the environmental risks…”

The information was announced by Dayhana Prud Homme, Director of the Department of Business and Tourism Services (EYST in Spanish) of SECTUR. Ms. Homme said they will carry out coordinated activities with the General Office of Environmental Health (DIGESA) to fulfill the sanitary requirements for the prevention of food-borne illnesses such as mosquitoes and flies, among others, reported SECTUR’s Press and Communications Office.

“We are carrying out a labor deployment of our technical personnel to the different tourism areas in the country in which we will evaluate the environmental risks and, based on what we find, we will undertake a health protection and promotion campaign to foment healthy places and to avoid the outbreak of diseases,” she said.

Prud Homme stressed the importance of the ongoing supervision of hotels, restaurants, bars and discotheques being carried out by SECTUR as part of its measures to fulfill the health norms and to assure the efficiency of tourism services.

“Environmental workers from DIGESA and Tourism Ministry inspectors are professionally competent to carry out their institutional functions which involve guaranteeing local as well as international visitors the very best health conditions,” added Ms. Homme.

As such, Prud Homme stressed that the National Council for Health and Tourism (CONSATUR), will also carry out several projects such as fumigation and rodent extermination in the communities around tourism establishments in an effort to avoid illnesses spread by mosquitoes such as dengue and malaria, among others.

She cited some examples of activities carried out in Saona Island which receives some 5,000 international tourists weekly.

“At the moment efforts are underway to identify the weaknesses and strengths in order to continue making headway in the task of improving the national health system. This way, they can sustain a flow of tourists to the DR, better optimizing the quality of services they receive,” added Ms. Homme.

Recently the Federation of Tour Operators of the United Kingdom (FTO), congratulated the Dominican Republic for substantial improvement in the levels of health and sanitary conditions in the hotels and tourist areas around the country which contribute to the fact that more and more international tourists are choosing the DR for their vacations.

Dayhana Prud Homme, Director of the Department of Business and Tourism Services (EYST) of SECTUR.