The sales plan for a tourism real estate project

The Dominican east receives a very large share of the country's international tourism: Punta Cana airport handled 72.6% of the foreign non-resident passengers who arrived between January and April 2025, according to the Central Bank. That flow explains why nearly every project in the area thinks first about the foreign buyer. But "foreign" is not a segment. It is an origin, and it holds motivations that have little in common.

We segment by the job the buyer wants done, not by passport. Origin matters later, to choose channel and language, but it does not define the value proposition.

Two nuances. Segments overlap: a second-home buyer sometimes rents the unit out while away, and the plan has to decide which job comes first. And the Dominican diaspora is a case of its own: they decide with the logic of a local buyer, but from abroad and through the channels of a foreign buyer.

How to prioritize

We decide with the winnability matrix: reachable buyers, the real ability to reach them with the channels available and value per transaction. A project with a handful of high-priced villas can live on one segment worked well; a condo with many units almost always needs two. The rule: one primary segment, one secondary segment with a capped budget and a written condition to scale it up, and everything else out of the plan.

When the same brochure serves the investor, the family looking for a second home and the buyer from Santo Domingo, it serves none of them well. The tool we use here is promise and proof: what we promise each segment and what evidence backs it up. Without proof, a promise is a slogan, and tourism real estate buyers have seen too many slogans.

Proof as an asset of the plan

The agency does not produce the proof. The developer does. A construction schedule with dated photos, a management agreement with an operator, the community bylaws, the handover record of the previous phase. The plan states when each one has to exist and who is responsible for getting it. If a piece of proof does not exist yet, the promise it would support is not made.

On returns, the sales team does not quote figures. It gives verifiable operating information and refers the buyer to their own advisor. A broker who promises returns exposes the developer, and the plan has to say what happens to that broker.

Five channels coexist in tourism real estate in the east. Each one brings in a different type of buyer, costs something different and demands different management. The most common mistake is treating them as interchangeable lead sources.

A handful of high-priced villas usually relies on a few well-chosen brokers and the developer's network. A large condo needs lead volume and an in-house team able to process it. In both cases the referral is the cheapest channel and the first one to be neglected.

The question is not "which channels do we use" but what share of planned sales must come from each channel, and what happens if one falls short. If a single broker or a single origin market carries pre-construction sales, the plan has a single point of failure. That can be accepted, but as a decision, with a written fallback. It is the same logic as in distribution channels in the Dominican Republic: a channel is governed with rules and data, not with relationships.

Almost every sales conflict in a tourism project starts the same way: two channels claim the same buyer. A broker sent them, but they had already written in through a portal. Without a rule written in advance, the call is made on relationships, and whoever loses stops sending clients.

The five rules we write before pre-construction sales open

1. Client registration with date and time. The channel registers the buyer in the developer's system before the tour or the call. No registration, no commission. Deliverable: registration form and protocol.
2. Registration expiry. A registration lapses if there is no activity within a set period. This keeps a name on a list from locking up a buyer for months. Deliverable: an agreed period, communicated to every channel.
3. Hierarchy when there is a conflict. Which channel prevails if two register the same buyer (usually the first with demonstrable activity) and who makes the call. Deliverable: one page with the standard cases already resolved.
4. In-house team out of the commission war. The internal team does not compete for a buyer a broker registered: it serves that buyer and closes the deal. Otherwise the broker notices and stops sending. Deliverable: an in-house variable pay scheme that fits with the co-broke structure.
5. On-time, visible payment. The commission payment schedule (at signing, at a buyer payment milestone or split) is set with the developer's legal and financial advisors, and it is honored. A broker who gets paid late stops prioritizing the project.

We do not give commission figures: they vary by project, channel and market. The structure matters more than the percentage.

Incentives that bring order to the channel

Useful incentives reward what the plan needs in each phase: the first reservations, the unit type that moves slowest, the segment the developer wants to strengthen. Improvised ones create disorder: a bonus commission to close the quarter teaches brokers to wait for the next one.

One rule we always apply: no channel incentive and no buyer discount without an expiry date and a decision logged in the period committee.

Pre-construction, construction and delivery are not stages of the build schedule. They are three different markets for the same project. What the buyer needs before signing changes in each one, and with it the priority segment, the channel that carries the most weight and the argument.

Why the condition matters

Without a written condition, the phase changes because the calendar changes. That is what happens when list prices go up at groundbreaking before the planned pre-construction volume is covered: the price rises, absorption drops and nobody decided that trade-off. With a written condition, the call is made in committee by looking at the funnel: hold the terms, switch segments or turn on another channel.

This is the logic of the activation sequence: waves with a date and a condition. Price and terms by phase and unit type are laid out with the offer ladder, so that every step has a reason. Payment terms, guarantees and contract structure are matters for lawyers and financial advisors.

Hiring an experienced local sales team is a good decision, but an incomplete one. Experience without method produces results nobody can read: no one knows whether a bad week is down to the market, the channel or the salesperson. The playbook is a short, operational document built from action sheets: every action with an owner, a cost, an indicator and a date.

What it contains

1. Lead journey by segment. From first contact to reservation: what happens at each step, how long it takes and who does it. Deliverable: one diagram per segment.
2. Response times. The maximum time to answer a lead, by source. The international buyer compares several projects at once, and whoever is slow loses. Deliverable: an internal service agreement, with its measurement.
3. Qualification script. The questions that tell an investor from a second-home buyer, and a ready buyer from one who is browsing. Deliverable: a script per segment, in the languages the plan chooses.
4. Property tour and remote tour. What is shown, in what order and what proof is handed over. A buyer purchasing from abroad needs a remote tour as well prepared as the one in the sales gallery. Deliverable: a tour protocol.
5. Objections and answers backed by proof. Timelines, distance, management, maintenance, reputation. Every answer points to a document, not an adjective. Deliverable: an objection library.
6. What the team does not do. It does not quote returns, does not promise dates it does not control and does not give legal or tax advice. It refers buyers to specialists. Deliverable: one page signed by the team.

Roles

We separate who generates demand, who handles it and who closes it, even when it is the same person. That way everyone can see where the buyer gets lost. And one role is almost always missing: someone who manages brokers as a channel, with onboarding, training, collateral, follow-up and payment.

For a foreign developer, the local layer matters: the pace, the weight of relationships and the way of negotiating with a Dominican buyer are not those of their home market. The method is the same; the script and the timing adapt.

Neither the number of leads nor the number of units sold is enough to run a project: the first says nothing about quality and the second arrives too late. The project is run on the full funnel, by channel and segment, against the signed baseline: where each stage stands today, from what source and who owns the number. If nothing is selling yet, it is built from the first weeks of activity and signed then.

How to read it

The dashboard exists to make decisions in committee. Tours that convert but too few qualified leads: look at the channel. Leads with no tours: look at first contact. Reservations that never become contracts: look at the promise, because something was promised that the proof does not support.

Two rules. Every channel, brokers included, logs into the same CRM, or its sales are not attributed. And the operation produces the data: a campaign report measures the campaign, not the project.

Without a baseline, the committee debates opinions. With a baseline, it debates decisions.

The advertising or marketing agency is essential to a tourism project: renderings, video, website, social channels, campaigns. What it should not do is decide the sales plan by default, which is exactly what happens when nobody else decides it. It is not its job, and its incentives sit in production and media spend.

What is often missing is someone who can say "no" to the agency with good judgment: to a campaign for a non-priority segment, to an asset that promises what the proof cannot support, to measuring success by reach. That is our role in strategic direction: we design, brief and review; the agency produces. We do not replace brokers or broker sales. The client decides. We direct. Third parties execute.

Take, as a hypothesis, a European developer with a condo project in Bávaro in pre-construction, with two unit types: one-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments. The developer has hired a local sales team of three, works with several brokers and has an agency running the website and social campaigns. Reservations are coming in more slowly than planned, and the proposed fix is to double the ad spend.

The diagnostic splits the funnel by unit type and channel. Suppose it shows this: the one-bedroom units move almost entirely through brokers, with buyers asking about rental management; the three-bedroom units barely get tours; campaign leads are plentiful, poorly qualified and answered late.

What is missing is not spend. Three things are. A promise to the investor backed by a management agreement that is not signed yet. A clear segment for the three-bedroom units, which fit the family second-home buyer and the local buyer better. And a first contact with a deadline and a script.

The plan is written in action sheets: close the agreement with the operator before communicating management again; a specific pitch and tour for families and local buyers; a response-time agreement measured weekly; registration rules for brokers. The agency gets a brief with two segments and two messages, not more budget. At the next committee, the team reads the funnel against the baseline and decides whether pre-construction moves to the next phase or needs another wave.

These mistakes do not come from lack of experience. They come from importing, unchanged, a model that worked in another market.

• Copying the home-country playbook. In many home markets, pre-construction sales rest on channels and trust frameworks that work differently in the Dominican Republic. In the East, relationships, referrals and the team's reputation weigh more in the first reservations.
• Depending on one broker or one origin market. It delivers fast results and leaves the project at the mercy of someone else's priorities. The usual cause is the absence of channel rules that make the project attractive to work for several brokers.
• Hiring a local sales team with no method and no dashboard. Nobody knows what works, and when someone leaves, what was learned leaves too, because it was never in the CRM.
• Selling the return. The most tempting shortcut and the most expensive one: it attracts the buyer who will feel misled if the operation underdelivers, and it exposes the developer.
• Deciding on instinct because there is no reliable market data. Public data on the sector is scarce, which is why the developer's own funnel, measured from day one, is its most valuable data.
• Underestimating the pace of collections. Buyers' decision and payment timelines are not those of the home market. The sales plan and the financial plan have to talk to each other, with the developer's advisors.

If the developer is also setting up a company in the country, these tensions add to those faced by any foreign founder; we cover them in starting a business in the Dominican Republic as a foreigner. And the full picture of how we work with companies in the east is in marketing strategy consultant in Punta Cana.

1. Split the funnel by channel and unit type, even in a spreadsheet: leads, tours, reservations and contracts for the last few weeks. That is the draft of your baseline.
2. Write in one line the job each segment wants done and check whether your sales collateral speaks to that job or to everyone at once.
3. List the proof you have and the promises you make without it. Whatever is missing, stop promising until it exists.
4. Review the client registration rules with your brokers. If they are not in writing, or the last conflict was settled over the phone, start there.
5. Measure the real response time to last week's leads. It is the cheapest indicator to improve.