WILLEMSTAD – June 16, 2023 – The Curaçao Tourist Board (CTB) is reporting 43,532 stayover visitors for the month of May, representing a 22% increase compared to May 2022, when 35,813 tourists visited Curaçao. It is the first time in history that Curaçao has welcomed at least 43,000 stayover arrivals in the month of May. The previous record for the month of May was in 2019, when CTB recorded 36,386 stayover arrivals.
As can be seen in the image below, CTB welcomed so far at least 42,000 stayover arrivals in one single month. It is expected that May arrivals will fall compared to April because of seasonality, however by holding above 43,000 visitors shows the great demand to Curaçao. The table below shows the performance of 2023’s months compared to last year, illustrating the positive performance of the past five months.
Stayover arrivals by region May 2023:
Tourist arrivals from the North American region doubled in May, with 138% increase marking a promising trend for continued growth out of the region. In total 12,178 North American visitors were recorded.
There is a substantial rise in visitor arrivals out of South America, as the CTB reports a 51% growth in arrivals. The Caribbean region also shows growth, recording 30% more visitors than last year.
Europe is the only region that fell in visitor arrivals (-14%), however its share of the total arrivals remains primary with 43% of all visitors travelling from Europe to Curaçao. The image below shows the performance of each region compared to last year, including the share of the total arrivals.
Top 5 countries:
Altogether the top 5 countries share in arrivals for May 2023 was 32,995 (76%) stayover visitors. CTB sees a decline in stayover arrivals out of the Netherlands, this is the impact of having less seat capacity out of the Dutch market, however the diversification of having other top countries performing spectacular is holding an overall positive performance. Despite of recording less Dutch visitors in May 2023, CTB reports that arrivals from Holland are similar compared to May 2019, when we recorded 15,713 Dutch visitors. Out of the USA we have recorded 138% more visitors. One of the main reasons of this increase is the great collaboration between the public and private sector promoting Curaçao in the United States of America. In addition, the increase in service out of JFK with JetBlue is also effective as of April 6th. The image below shows the performance of the top 5 countries, including their top 3 states of residence of our visitors.
Accommodation, average nights, and demographics:
Information gathered from the Immigration card shows that altogether visitors spent 8 nights on average in Curaçao. Sixty-one percent of all the visitors stayed in resort hotels. Many of the visitors who travelled in May are between 25 and 44 years old (37%) and 45 and 64 years old (30%). The images below illustrate the accommodation and demographics of the tourists who travelled to Curaçao in May 2023.
Cruise data:
There were 15 cruise ship calls and 40,697 cruise visitors in May, this year.
Last year, May Curaçao Ports Authority reported 8 cruise ship calls and 28,362 cruise passengers.
