Bright future for Curaçao after record breaking numbers in 2022

Curaçao is now focusing on surpassing the 500,000 tourists mark in 2023.

The Curaçao Tourist Board (CTB) reported a record-breaking number of stayover visitor arrivals in 2022. It is the first time that the Caribbean island came close to half million stayover visitors. With a total of 489,558 tourists, Curaçao was only 10,442 visitors short of the emblematic 500,000 number. This performance largely exceeded the original target to welcome 375,000 visitors, which was seen as a realistic target at the beginning of 2022.

The first quarter of the year started slow with ongoing Covid restrictions. But numbers of stay-over arrivals started to grow again from April 2022. July 2022 was the best performing month of the year, when Curaçao welcomed 48,246 stay-over arrivals.

The island registered record breaking arrivals from the primary countries of focus The Netherlands and United States of America. We have welcomed 237,654 stayover visitors from the Netherlands. In total 278,468 stay-over arrivals from Europe are recorded in 2022, also a first. The share of the European visitors reached last year 57%. 

Another record was set with the USA. For the first time Curaçao welcomed over 90,000 stay-over visitors -exactly a total of 93,428 visitors. Altogether, 105,593 North American visitors were welcomed in 2022, generating a share of 22%. 

Colombia was Curaçao’s third largest primary market at 28,460 arrivals in 2022 while South America in general performed above expectation with a total market share of 13%. The Caribbean region represented 6% of all tourist arrivals with 29,818 visitors.

Curaçao Tourist Board is back at ITB Berlin 2023 in order to connect with all major stakeholders, aiming to give a further boost to its tourism sector and outperform 2022 numbers. With an ultimate objective of surpassing half a million tourists.

Hall 22 / Stand 105

Photo: © Cole Marshall – unsplash