The agreement, announced by David Collado on his social media, seeks to generate information to measure the impact of the project and guide the opportunities it will bring to Puerto Plata and the Northern region
SANTO DOMINGO. – The development of Punta Bergantín is entering a new stage in which knowledge and academic research will play a central role in measuring its effects on Puerto Plata and the Northern region.
Tourism Minister David Collado used his social media to announce last Friday the signing of an agreement between the Punta Bergantín project and the Pontifical Catholic University Madre y Maestra (PUCMM), aimed at promoting economic research and generating information that allows measuring the impact and opportunities associated with tourism development.
“Because it’s not just about developing a new destination, but about doing it with knowledge, planning, and a clear vision of how that growth can reach our people,” Collado wrote when announcing the agreement on his Instagram account.
Since the presentation of the Punta Bergantín master plan at PUCMM in June 2024, the project had raised the need to know more precisely the socio-economic reality of the population of Villa Montellano and its relationship with the future tourism development.
On that occasion, Andrés Marranzini, executive director of Punta Bergantín, reported that a socioeconomic census of the inhabitants of the area would be carried out and that an alliance with the university was being sought to develop integration and sustainability initiatives.
The master plan presented at that time envisioned approximately 4,000 hotel rooms , around 1,500 tourist residences , 2,000 mixed-use units , a golf course , and other entertainment and service components.
PUCMM emphasized from that moment that the project would have implications for tourism and real estate development not only in Puerto Plata, but throughout the entire Northern region.
From understanding the community to measuring the impact
The research announced now adds to another study carried out by Punta Bergantín with the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo (INTEC), whose results were presented last July and offer a first quantitative approach to the economic impact of the project in Villa Montellano.
That study estimated that, during the initial phase of construction and development, between 2025 and 2030, Punta Bergantín could generate between 7,000 and 11,000 direct jobs annually and between six and nine total jobs, direct, indirect and induced, for each hotel room.
The research also projected a 25% to 30% in sales for local businesses and services, and a 14% to 17% increase in household income in Villa Montellano linked to the economic activity generated by the project. For the next decade, it estimated more than US$200 million annually in total added value.
The study was built from interviews with 322 families, 92 businesses and 15 community leaders, complemented with information from the National Statistics Office (ONE), the Single System of Beneficiaries (SIUBEN), the Central Bank, the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Finance, in addition to data from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
Among its results, 71.7% of the business owners consulted expressed a willingness to become a supplier to Punta Bergantín.
The report also identified needs related to road infrastructure and community services, as well as the importance of maintaining permanent channels of communication with the population and preserving the cultural identity of Villa Montellano during the transformation process.
It was already on the agenda
The concern about measuring the economic effects of Punta Bergantín is not new either. The terms of reference published by the project itself for an economic study set as objectives the identification, quantification, and characterization of the positive and negative externalities, economic multipliers, investments, and financial derivatives associated with its operations.
The document also established that the study should analyze the impact on the tourism value chain and the possible changes in the productive dynamics of Villa Montellano, as well as determine its effects on employment, taxes and income redistribution.
The expected results also included recommendations for dealing with potential negative externalities.
This approach explains the importance of the new agreement with PUCMM: the discussion about Punta Bergantín is beginning to shift from how much will be invested and how many rooms the new destination will have towards a broader question: how will its economic and social effects be distributed in the territory and what conditions must be created so that the local population and businesses can participate in that growth.
PUCMM is part of the scientific structure of the project
The alliance announced by Collado also has an important institutional precedent in the election, in July 2025, of the Reverend Father Secilio Espinal, rector of PUCMM, as president of the Scientific Committee of the Punta Bergantín Innovation HUB, sworn in by President Luis Abinader.
This committee was created to identify and design research and innovation projects and brings together representatives from academia, the private sector, and government entities. Its priority areas are education, the environment, agriculture and food security, renewable energy, and the digital economy.
A month later, PUCMM hosted the committee's first meeting, where work structures and next steps were defined. The university explained that the purpose was to develop applied research and connect scientific knowledge with solutions to current and future problems.
The relationship between PUCMM and Punta Bergantín, therefore, has been developing since before the signing announced last Friday, August 21. The university had incorporated the project into its training and research plans in Puerto Plata, while Punta Bergantín has sought to connect the academic sector with the needs of the region.
In November 2025, for example, Tourism and Gastronomy students from PUCMM visited the project to learn about its objectives, progress, and future plans. Punta Bergantín has proposed that the destination will integrate hotels, residences, film studios, an academic campus, and other recreational and innovative components.
The new destination wants to connect with its surroundings
The size of Punta Bergantín, which is being developed in Villa Montellano, a few kilometers from Puerto Plata, makes the generation of local information especially relevant, as it aims to become one of the main new tourist centers in the North.
The INTEC study already showed that the impact would not be limited to the construction and operation of hotels: it would reach commerce, services, transportation, logistics, the real estate sector and agricultural, fishing and manufacturing suppliers.
The research also identified a window of opportunity to incorporate the local population. According to their estimates, 1,347 people with specialized profiles could be incorporated from the current stage; in six months, some 2,153 people with moderate training would have employment opportunities; in 18 months, the figure would rise to 3,709; and in 36 months, up to 8,187 residents could benefit from the job opportunities generated.
Villa Montellano, the municipality where Punta Bergantín is located, had 20,753 inhabitants in 2022, according to the X National Population and Housing Census of the National Statistics Office (ONE), of which 10,363 were men and 10,390 were women.
The new agreement announced by Collado now places PUCMM in that economic conversation. The official explained that the purpose is to produce information that will allow them to “better understand, measure, and take advantage of” the impact and opportunities that Punta Bergantín will bring.
The exact scope of the new research, its variables, methodology, timeline, and expected results have not yet been publicly disclosed in detail, but the announcement completes a sequence that began with community diagnosis, progressed to measuring economic impact, and now incorporates academia again to further knowledge generation.
Thus, Punta Bergantín is beginning to be viewed not only as a tourism investment project, but as a territorial laboratory in which an attempt is made to measure, before and during its development, how much growth it produces, where it is produced, who participates in it and what is needed for its benefits to reach the surrounding community.
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