Growing Tourism - Sept 25, 2010

It’s no mystery that the world ‘crisis’ has indeed taken its toll in different ways and to differing extents on all projects around the world. Luckily, Costa Rica, the little hidden gem that it is, has not suffered too badly and while values and arrivals in 2008/2009 seemed to level off Tourism in Costa Rica actually grew 3.96% in first half of 2010.

The Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT) (Costa Rica’s Tourism Board) has an optimistic outlook for this year, expecting to reach two million visitors for 2010. The optimism is based on the 3.96% increase in tourism the first half of this year as compared to the same period in 2009. This figure is nearer 10% for the South Pacific Zone!

According to data by the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería (Costa Rica’s immigration service) the number of tourist arrivals from January to June 2010 was 1.124.044. In contrast, during the first half of 2009, 1.025.460 tourist arrivals were recorded.

Given these figures, the executive director of the Cámara Costarricense de Hoteles (CCH), Pablo Solano, confirms the increase in tourist arrivals and the average occupancy rate reported by his membership has also risen slightly over last year, averaging 60%.

Solano added that the hotel operators are positive that increase will continue due to the ongoing efforts by the Chinchilla government to attract more visitors to Costa Rica.