A tourist corridor between Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Panama in the spotlight

Within the framework of the Summit of the Central American Integration System (SICA) held in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, in the Dominican Republic, the Costa Rican president considered that both his country, Panama and the Dominican Republic have multiple attractions, security and a tourist offer oriented towards sustainable tourism.

Mainly, the idea would be to attract more European, Canadian and American travelers; and from all over the world so that they can enjoy a more attractive offer in a single package.

Therefore, Chaves highlighted the importance of the Alliance for Development in Democracy that is made up of the Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica and Ecuador.

According to the president of Costa Rica, these countries enjoy freedom of expression and a deep democracy added to the fact that they are good hosts and the tourism industry has managed to attract foreign direct investment, creation of free zones and the use of “nearshoring”.

THE NUMBERS BACK THEM UP

Costa Rican tourism entrepreneurs recently expressed their confidence that visits will increase next year after they undertook several tours in North America and Europe to promote the country.

According to official data, between January and September 2022, 47,024 German tourists, 41,353 Spaniards, 21,932 Dutch and 40,835 Mexicans visited Costa Rica, figures that are close to matching those of 2019, the last year without a pandemic.

Tourism is one of the main engines of the Costa Rican economy. Before the health crisis, this country of 5.1 million inhabitants received just over 3 million tourists each year and tourism employed some 400,000 people.

During 2022 the figures have recovered and are close to matching those registered prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the ICT.

In the case of the Dominican Republic, it received 7.5 million tourists between January and November of this year, almost 3 million more than in the same period of 2021, a record for the country, the Ministry of Tourism reported.

Almost 6.5 million tourists arrived by air, while more than 1 million did so by cruise ship, representing “extraordinary” record numbers, said Tourism Minister David Collado.

The Caribbean nation, whose main source of foreign currency is tourism, received 571,354 tourists by air in November, that is, 50,000 more than those who arrived in the same month last year, according to the same data.

A growth in the arrival of cruise passengers was also reported, registering the visit of 195,270 in November, compared to 80,083 in the same month of 2021.

Panama is not far behind, as of last September, the Panama Tourism Authority (ATP) expected to close 2022 with a reception of 1.8 million tourists, while trying to recover the pre-pandemic figures for the industry.

The tourism industry was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, which caused the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to fall by 17.9% in 2020, the year in which Panama received 70% fewer visitors than in 2019.

With information from Bloomberg Línea