Jamao Eco Tours is a community company made up of 20 members (young people), who value natural wealth in favor of the local economy, it is the first receptive community-type tour operator in the Dominican Republic and is creating a community tourism destination in network. It is in charge of chaining tourist products and services to sell as excursion packages, which benefit more than 80 families in 9 communities of the town of Jamao al Norte. This social business brings together young people and members from the communities of the Espaillat province, in the north of the country, who through the Espaillat Ecotourism Cluster with the support of the Sustainable Community Tourism Project and the concern of the Young people to generate sources of income for all the Community with the resources available in the locality. This community tour operator has been developed by establishing a management system based on community participation for decision-making, capacity building, productive chaining and service creation. In addition, equitable distribution of benefits, responsible use of the tangible and intangible heritage of the Community. Within good sustainability practices: -The sustainable management system covers environmental, social, cultural, economic, quality, human rights, health and safety aspects. -The collaborators of Jamao Ecotours and the Community are continuously trained on issues of sustainable tourism, community development, digital promotion, soft skills. -The group functions as a permanent overseer of the protection and conservation of the local fauna and flora. -They have established a monitoring system for visitation and the purchase of local products. -The company provides advice and support to the local service providers with which it relates, regarding the quality and sustainability of its services. In addition, they are recipients of groups of students and communities to exchange experiences. 70% of the profits are allocated to the Community

Chocolala Artisan Chocolate Factory is a society of women entrepreneurs from the community of Altamira, Puerto Plata province, in the north of the Dominican Republic, who emerged with the purpose of producing and marketing chocolates. This Women's Society was born from an Association of Mothers of Las Lajas Community who, motivated to achieve their economic autonomy to improve their quality of life, insert themselves into the local production chain and generate income to contribute to their families. The formation and growth of this small company led by women has been thanks to the commitment and active involvement of its members, creating a vision of joint work and determining value-added actions that frame their products within an experience of collective work, responsible production, closing inequality gaps and the right to decent work and sustainable management. Chocolala has generated good operating and management practices for its business, such as: - Creation of a Cocoa experience and a Cocoa trail, managed from the objectives of Community-Based Sustainable Tourism. In this trail, the interpretation of the process of sowing, cultivation and relevance of cocoa is carried out. It has been created to publicize the value of the products. - Achieving more than 500 visits per month. - Link with a national chain of supermarkets for the placement of their products. - Legal constitution of the company: National registrations and certification with the FDA. - Established measures with a gender perspective to contribute to closing existing inequality gaps between men and women. - Creation of a diversity of craft products complementary to chocolate that enrich the tourist experiences within the factory. - Established synergies with other tourism companies and complementary service companies in the tourism value chain Puerto Plata province. - Operation based on healthy, safe and sustainable tourism based on a contingency plan for COVID 19.

This project implemented in the 14 provinces of the northern region or Cibao of the Dominican Republic with the objective of strengthening the capacities and coordination mechanisms for facilitating the development of TCS with public-private participation in the Northern Region, under the execution of the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development (MEPyD), National Institute of Professional Technical Training (INFOTEP) with the support of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) from 2016 to March 2022. The TCS tries to be a local solution with a global impact, knowing that in the specific case of tourism development in the Dominican Republic it has been based on traditional aspects such as the development of tourism offers by foreign investors, being the national local participation in decision-making at an operational level and where the reinvestment of economic benefits is not contemplated in the communities, creating a scenario of challenges to promote and facilitate community management of tourism, giving a more active role to the participation of local members in decision making; Diversify the tourist offer by promoting the creation of tourist products managed from the communities to enhance local pride, authenticity, uniqueness and identity; Facilitate the empowerment and articulation of community people for concerted planning to take advantage of the endogenous potential of the territories. Through the practice in the northern region in this Project, it was shown that tourism development in which the community plays a leading role works as a new model of tourism development in which the region plays a central role. Using this model, regional tourism can continue and grow stronger in the future. Below, we present a summary of the most relevant results of the Sustainable Community Tourism project in the Dominican Republic: