Attracting new airlines and a promoting the country to new destinations are the reasons for an increase in tourist arrivals of 7% in January and February of this year over last.
The Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT) and the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería (DGME) – immigration service – reported 545.117 tourist arrivals for the first two months of 2014, 36.110 more than for the same period in 2013.
Tourism Minister, Allan Flores, said the results are directly linked to the Chinchilla administration efforts to attract more airlines, an increase in the number of seats and foreign market promotions. Airlines like Spirit, Frontier, JetBlue, Interjet, Delta and United increased the number of flights.
The main entry points into Costa Rica is still air, the Juan Santamaria airport in Alajuela, and Daniel Oduber in Guanacaste.
In the past year, Aeromexico began flights into Costa Rica and Panama’s Copa Airlines with two flights a week to Liberia from its Hub de Americas in Panama with more than 70 destinations.
“These indicators show a significant rebound that is very positive for the remainder of the year and brings us closer to the goal of receiving 2.5 million tourists”, said Carlos Ricardo Benavides, Ministro de la Presidencia.
A major boost to Costa Rica tourism this year is the removal of visa restrictions for Russian citizens, confirmed both Flores and Benavides.
Source El Financierio
Every year they cook those numbers. They include thousands and thousands of Nica peasant laborer’s crossing the boarders for work and then going home. Best estimate “for tourists–not migrants”–is from the hotel associations.
40% full during Crhistmas ain’t good.