SAN JUAN – Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic will launch joint multi-destination tourism packages that could come on the market starting in September, Puerto Rican tourism authorities announced Monday.

The executive director of the state-owned Puerto Rico Tourism Company, Jaime Lopez, said at a press conference that the packages will be ready once his agency reaches a definite agreement with travel agents in the Dominican Republic.

Lopez said that the initiative will be one of the causes for the expected 25 percent increase in European tourists next year, which means 100,000 visitors from that continent will come to Puerto Rico in 2010.

He emphasized that to achieve that objective the image of Puerto Rico is being strengthened mainly in Spain and Great Britain, countries that he called “natural markets” for the island.

He also said that one of the aims of the plan is to attract to Puerto Rico Europeans who are visiting the Dominican Republic and in, an opposite sense, U.S. citizens who are passing through Puerto Rico will be able to travel to the eastern part of the island of Hispaniola, which the D.R. shares with Haiti.

The multi-destination packages, he said, will not only serve to attract tourists from third countries, but will also increase the arrival of Dominicans to Puerto Rico and vice versa.

Lopez recalled that the Dominican tourist is one of the tourists who spends the most money during his or her stay in Puerto Rico. EFE