Costa Rica's tourism has experienced a significant boost, with more than 1.84 million visitors between January and September of this year. This represents a 16.4% increase from the previous year. As a result, the Costa Rican government is projecting record-breaking figures for 2023. Based on data from the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism (ICT), the country is expected to receive between 2.3 and 2.5 million visitors by the end of the year. This would surpass the 2.1 million tourists in 2022 and even exceed the record numbers achieved in 2018 and 2019 before the pandemic.
"These figures indicate that we are getting closer to surpassing the tourism records that the country achieved before the pandemic in 2018 and 2019, when 2.3 and 2.4 million visitors came to our country, respectively. This is a result of our efforts to promote development across all regions of the country," said William Rodríguez, the Minister of Tourism.
The United States is naturally the primary source market for tourists visiting Costa Rica, with around 1.09 million travelers arriving there, almost 60% of the total tourists. North America represents one in seven visitors to Costa Rica, with a total of 1.32 million travelers, an 18.2% increase compared to last year. In addition, around 319,691 tourists arrived from Europe (17.3% of the total), showing a positive growth of 4.9% compared to last year.
In year-on-year Costa Rica tourism growth terms, the main markets are Germany, with 53,469 tourists (up 13.7%), France (with 51,314 travelers, up 11.3%), the United Kingdom (with almost 50,000 visitors), and Spain, with more than 41,400.