The main client is still the American tourist. Last year, 770,129 came from the United States, with a diminishing of 37,033 American travelers comparing to 2008, which is the drop of 4,59% in 2009.
The decreasing numbers of the coming tourists were similar in the airports. The International Airport Juan Santamaría, closed in 2009 with a drop of 7,26% registered an arrival of 1,127,869 travelers, 88,311 tourists less than 2008.
What the tourist sector lived during 2009, was done by external factors that were impossible to handle. Costa Rica offers conditions that make it attractive by its biodiversity and the international image as a sustainable tourism model. We are the most competitive country in the sector in all Latin America”, pointed Ramos.
Ramos pointed that inside the positive signs that can be foreseen as the beginning of the recovery in the tourist activity. The recovery of the economy in the United States allow the potential travelers to increase their travel plans.
2010: A year to recover
Costa Rica closed with a negative growing of 7,97% in the tourist reception in 2009, a total of 1,922,579 tourists visited the country last year, 166,595 less travelers compared to the numbers in 2008. This dropped in tourism is based on the consequences brought by the financial crisis that the United States went through. That’s enough reason for the negative closure that wasn’t presented in the country since 2002.
It was a difficult year, there was a contraction of the capitation markets, traveler’s priorities changed and the tourism sector was affected; however we have felt a tendency to improve the numbers this year and that will allow those involve in the sector to see a positive scene”, affirmed Juan Carlos Ramos, President of the National Tourism Chamber (CANATUR).
The main access to enter the country is still the aerial way, because 1,319,615 tourists entered using this way. It is equal to a 68,64% of all visitors, registered a drop of 7,33% than 2008 when the travelers got to 1,424,034 tourists.
After a difficult year, the recovery of the sector is giving the first steps with the objective to achieve a closure with a growing among 3% to 5% of the coming tourists, according to the projections of CANATUR.
2010 will be a year of challenges, the first one is to reactivate the national tourist activity, looking to get to the previous levels of the preceding years and in a short term. This must be joint in a big effort from the side of those who are part of this sector, such as the ICT, CANATUR, enterprises, and so on”, indicated Ramos.
Data from a census from Deloitte done to 2,000 American Travelers at the end of 2009, reflects the optimism and the trust to travel are getting stronger. According to the census, 25% indicated that they will take more previsions for the travel, while a 45% will take the same quantity from the previous year.
Another positive information is the beginning of the recovery of the sector in 2010, is the light increasing of 1,7% for the coming tourists during December 2009, compared with the same period of 2008. The numbers indicated that the last month of 2009, Costa Rica received 186,650 tourists, 3,104 more travelers than the ones in December 2008.
From the other side, CANATUR is optimistic about the negotiations that the ICT is doing to attract more airlines to the country, point that is in favor of the industry because it means more seats available to travel to Costa Rica.
Among the negotiations, we already have the operations of 5 weekly flights among San Jose-Amsterdam, with KLM-Air France in a sharing code with Copa Airlines. Besides, we must sum the beginning of the operations of international Airlines such as Jetairfly from Belgium, Air Cihina from China, and WetJet from Canada.
These are processes of negotiation from which CANATUR applaude for those that are already concreted and put all hope in those that are still in the final phase”, adimitted Ramos.
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