2023 will mark a record year for tourism by Costa Ricans abroad.Not only will the number of travelers be recovered before the Covid-19 health emergency, but a new record will be set.
At the end of August, the authorities of the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) counted 767,752 national travelers, for an average of 95,969 per month.This means that if the average is maintained, at the end of December the country would add 1,151,628, which is slightly lower than the 2019 record of 1,152,758.However, it is also true that in the last months of the year a high travel season begins and with it the average skyrockets.
For example, for December of last year, 132,624 domestic travelers were registered, which almost doubled some months in 2022 and was the highest record of the period.
Solid recovery
“Our recovery is solid, as shown by the figures for the first half of 2023, and the effects of the pandemic are being felt less intensely,” said William Rodríguez, previously Minister of Tourism.
2023: the year of full recovery
After the pandemic, which meant an abrupt drop in the number of domestic travelers for 2020, tourism by Costa Ricans abroad has been recovering, but without yet reaching the number of travelers before the health emergency.
The good news is that if the average number of national departures is maintained for the rest of the year, Costa Rica would reach the 2019 figures and possibly have a record number at the end of 2023 according to figures from the Costa Rican Tourism Institute.
Favorite destinations
On the other hand, the favorite destinations of Costa Ricans are Panama, the United States and Mexico. Likewise, the ICT reports thousands of trips to other places such as Nicaragua and Colombia, also motivated in part by the family ties of migrants in national territory.
In that sense, Mauricio Ventura, former minister of tourism, referred to the importance of tourism for Costa Ricans, since it is also part of the engine that moves the economy.
“The tourism development of recent decades in Costa Rica has been considered for several years as the engine of economic and social development of the country. “No one doubts today the contribution in investment as well as in the production of employment distributed throughout the national territory and much less the generation of foreign currency, positioning itself in the pre-pandemic years as the main productive sector,” said Ventura.
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