QCOSTARICA – The crisis generated by COVID-19 in the tourism sector has been overcome, at least in terms of visitor arrivals, as the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT) figures reveal that both international airports are close to or have surpassed 2019 – that is pre-pandemic – numbers.
In Guanacaste, the Guanacaste Airport (LIR) received a total of 661,579 tourists in 2022, exceeding the visitor numbers registered prior to the pandemic. In San Jose, the Juan Santamaría Airport (SJO) registered 1,455,928 visitors, a figure that shows a recovery of 80% in relation to 2019.
Together, the country closed the year 2022 with an entry of tourists by air, land and sea of 2,349,527 people, more than one million passengers than in 2021, of which 90% arrived by plane.
These figures show that Costa Rica has recovered 3 out of 4 tourists from the pre-pandemic year.
“These numbers are the extraordinary result of the joint effort of public sector actors and private sector actors. These are encouraging data that give us a boost to get as close as possible in 2023 to equal the tourism indicators that the country had before the pandemic,” said William Rodríguez, Minister of Tourism.
This has resulted in the recuperation of employment in the sector. The ICT assured in a press release that estimates during 2022 hiring, in tourist activities to attend to accommodation, food, transportation and recreational activities for tourists, were very similar to the levels reached. hiring in 2019.
However, despite the fact that the indicators show a clear recovery trend, there is still a long way to go, since these improvements do not reach all tourism subsectors equally. For example, many workers still face piecework contracts, that is, day work, without legal working conditions or social protection.
In fact, a study carried out by the organization ‘Turismo en Marcha’ with 300 entrepreneurs in the tourism sector showed that only an average of 47% of the companies have managed to rehire the same number of employees they had before the pandemic and 41% had to reduce their payroll.
“If we look at it by subsector, the figures vary, for example, 57% of travel agencies and tour operators have the same number of workers and 35% reduced their staff, while only 41% of the accommodations have the same number of workers and 37% decreased it. The sector is still contracted from the point of view of hiring personnel,” explained Jane Lemarie Caicedo, president of Turismo en Marcha.
This shows that there are still many jobs to be filled or that have been filled informally, according to Tadeo Morales, vice president of the Arenal Chamber of Tourism.
Where do tourists come from?
Americans continue to head the list of visitors to Costa Rica. In 2022, a total of 1,252,469 people from the U.S. entered by air, which is close to 98% of the number that arrived in the country in 2019.
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In addition, all the North American airlines that operated prior to the pandemic have returned, some with new destinations and added flights.
Canadians visiting Costa Rica in 2022 numbered 171,033, a figure that grew by 121,116 tourists compared to 2021.
From Europe, 410,832 tourists arrived by air, equivalent to 93% of pre-pandemic travelers, with the United Kingdom heading the list, with 70,425 tourists, followed by Germany with 66,716, France with 59,504, Spain with 53,217 and the Netherlands with 28,693 tourists.
