Cruise tourism is an opportunity for industrial engineers
SANTO DOMINGO. The Maritime Vice President of the company SCHAD and Advisor to the Executive Power in Cruise Tourism, engineer Francisco Carreras, affirmed that the growing cruise industry in the Dominican Republic will bring great opportunities to industrial engineers, due to the demand for supply chains in different sectors.
He argued that there will be a great demand for sectors such as the supply of food and beverages, maintenance and repair services to terminals and ships, proper handling of both solid and liquid, toxic and non-toxic waste, medical assistance and inspection personnel, among others. And this without neglecting transport services, excursions and attractions on land, whose capabilities should be expanded to meet the increase in the flow of tourists.
Carreras said that the recently inaugurated seaport Amber Cove Cruise Center, in the Bay of Maimon close to the city of Puerto Plata; It has the ability to handle a few 300 cruise ships per season. With this installed capacity, it is expected that this complex will provide no less than 750,000 tourists and / or hikers, and some 320,000 crew per season at the time of reaching their optimum capacity.
The advisor expressed himself in these terms when giving the keynote lecture "Cruise Supply and Tourism Chain: A Sea of Entrepreneurship Opportunities in Our Island" before those attending the inauguration ceremony of the XXII Industrial Engineering Symposium entitled "A World Class Supply Chain: From Planning to Reverse Logistics ”organized by the students of the Industrial Engineering Student Committee (CEII) of the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo - INTEC -.
The opportunity is not only for the northern region, as enumerated by the engineer Carreras, similar projects are currently under development in the provinces of Pedernales and Monte Cristi, as well as the creation of a regional center (HUB) to offer services to logistics operators and medical assistance services to the maritime industry. All these initiatives aimed at satisfying an industry that contributed 1.99 trillions of dollars in direct expenses during the 2012 in 21 Caribbean destinations, according to the BREA report for the FCCA.
During the conference, in accordance with the theme of the symposium for this year, the opportunities throughout the Supply Chain for this industry and the new levels of demand that it will present to our country were emphasized.
The Industrial Engineering Symposium is organized every year by the Industrial Engineering Students Committee (CEII), a non-profit student organization founded at the 1991 by students of the INTEC Industrial Engineering career. To this day, the CEII remains a student-run organization with the purpose of improving the training process of Industrial Engineers and other professionals from related areas who will be part of Dominican society, through the organization of educational activities. to update and expand their knowledge.