NPR This is the indicator from Planet Money, I'm Darien Woods.

And I'm Whelan Wong.

Isaiyas Enriches comes from a family of cacao farmers in the Dominican Republic.

A few years ago, he decided to expand into tourism. He opened a lodge that he called

La Jungla de Chocolate or chocolate jungle. Visitors get to see on the farm and learn

where chocolate comes from. There's a lot of people in the world who know about cacao and eat chocolate,

but they don't know how it's made.

Isaiya says that many of his guests come from European countries like Switzerland, Germany and Austria.

But he also hosts a lot of visitors from Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.

And this flow of domestic tourists reflects how some

Dominicans have more disposable income to spend on things like vacations.

The people that visit us are middle to upper class, but we've had people from other classes too.

Groups of teachers, groups of students.

Groups of maestros, group of the students. What I say he has seen in his tourism business reflects a broader story of economic growth in the Dominican Republic.

This Caribbean nation of 11 million people is considered a middle income country like Costa Rica and Peru.

But its economy is the breakout star of the region.

It's grown on average more than any other Latin American country in the last five decades.

And the International Monetary Funds says it could become an advanced economy in the next 40 years.

So today on the show we look at what other countries can learn from the Dominican

example and whether the benefits of the country's growth are being shared widely. Support for this podcast and the following message come from WISE, the app that makes managing

your money in different currencies easy.

With WISE, you can send and spend money internationally at the mid-market exchange rate, no guesswork, and no hidden fees.

...