I read this story (below) a while back but had to revisit it after a discussion on technology and tourism with some friends. There were some reports that Dominican Republic has now passed Jamaica for tourist travel. The discussion focused on Dominican Republic development versus Jamaica. I hate these country comparisons. Here is my question. Does a higher Internet usage mean economic development?

Source: CaribWorldNews
CaribWorldNews, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Nov. 13, 2009: The Caribbean may be lagging behind three other areas of the world when it comes to Internet usage but the Dominican Republic continues to lead in the region with the most web surfers, CaribWorldNews has found.

Latest statistics compiled by the Miniwatts Marketing Group based on International Communications Union and Nielsen data, show that while the Caribbean lags behind Asia, Europe and North America when it comes to Internet penetration, the DR has the most web users with a whopping 3 million.

Still that`s just an estimated total of 33 percent of the entire 9.6 million who live in the Spanish-speaking nation. But it`s more than double that of Jamaica, the next Caribbean nation that manages to come closest to the DR with most web users.

Miniwatts data on World Internet Usage, shows Jamaica with 1.5 million or just over 54 percent of its 2.8 million nationals, taking the second spot. Cuba was third with 1.4 million web users while Haiti and Puerto Rico tied for the fourth spot with 1 million users, respectively.

Read the rest here