Q COSTA RICA — After eight consecutive months of increasing tourism, Costa Rica experienced a 1.2% drop in air arrivals in June, marking the first month of negative growth in 2026.
The Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT) — Costa Rica’s tourism board – reported that 214,518 tourists visited the country last month, compared to 217,120 in June 2025.
The North American market, which makes up the largest share of travelers in the data, dropped by 1.6% in June. Arrivals from both the U.S. and Mexico fell by 3% each.
The ICT explains that this decrease in visitors is due to various factors, including the geopolitical context, the increase in jet fuel prices, and the concentration of tourists from Mexico and the United States during the World Cup.
In contrast, the Canadian market saw a 25.9% increase, a trend observed in Canadian tourism during the first half of the year. This has positioned them as Costa Rica’s second most important tourism trading partner for 2026.
Despite this overall decrease in tourist arrivals in June, ICT statistics show that the first five months of the year saw positive figures in the number of tourists arriving by air.
Increase in European Tourism
Unlike the trend observed in North American tourists last month, European visitors saw a 12.9% increase, led by Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In the case of Spain, the increase between June of this year and June of last year was 23.4%.
In June, 4,669 visitors arrived in Costa Rica from Spain, 2,398 from Germany, and 2,515 from the United Kingdom.
Looking at the data accumulated throughout 2026, European tourism followed a similar pattern, with a 9.7% increase in the first six months compared to the same period in 2025.
The main European markets this semester were France, Germany, and Spain. Although Germany was the country of origin for the majority of tourists, with 40,916 arrivals, Spanish visitors showed the largest increase in 2026, at 16.8%.
Finally, tourism from South America declined for the third consecutive month, with a 2.3% drop in June, marking the first month in which Argentine tourists experienced a decline in visits.
An industry that grew slowly in 2025
At the beginning of the year, the Cámara Nacional de Turismo (Canatur) — National Chamber of Tourism 1 reported that in 2025, the growth in tourist arrivals by air was only 1% compared to 2024.
Therefore, they warned of a loss of competitiveness for Costa Rica compared to other neighboring regions. According to Canatur, countries such as the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Colombia, and El Salvador experienced faster growth in attracting tourists.
The ICT and the Banco Central (Central Bank) have maintained that Costa Rica has a differentiated tourism model and that recent months have shown signs of recovery, especially during the high season, except for June, when it actually saw a decline in visitation.