In March 1913, a German daredevil named George Schmidt made local history when he flew his monoplane over Georgetown, dropping messages from the sky.
With just over 10 million people, the Dominican Republic is the second-largest Caribbean nation after Cuba. But the D.R. is clear and away the regional leader when it comes to tourism. In 2012, more than 4.56 million tourists visited the country by air, a 5.9 percent increase over the year before. Of the total, just under 639,000 were non-resident Dominicans abroad.
Economic difficulties in Curaçao — the largest Dutch-speaking island in the recently dissolved Netherlands Antilles confederation — as well as political uncertainty in nearby Venezuela, are affecting retailers ahead of a planned hike in the country’s sales tax on luxury products such as perfumes, jewelery and electronics from 6 percent to 9 percent.
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