WILLEMSTAD – The Curaçao Tourist Board (CTB) reports a preliminary growth of 2.9% during the first eleven months of 2016, when leaving aside the negative impact from Venezuela on the year to date arrivals.
Traffic from the neighbor country Venezuela showed a slowdown this year causing a negative impact on our overall performance. Venezuela, plagued by the ongoing economic challenges, is short by 28,894 visitors in the first eleven months, resulting in a 34% decrease on the year to date performance.
Curaçao welcomed in total 401,728 stayover visitors between January and November 2016, a decrease of 5% compared to the same period in last year.
Stayover visitor arrivals from North America have reached a total 69,808. A falloff in travelers from South America in particular from Venezuela, has caused a decrease 23% to reach a total of 97,853. From the Caribbean we welcomed 31,533 visitors. The European market, with 188,472 stayover visitors, continued its strong performance with a growth of 4% compared to the same period in 2015.
CTB and MEO utilizes the ‘Turistika Model’ to calculate the economic impact generated from the tourism industry. During the first eleven months of 2016 a direct impact of $ 454.9 million US dollars is generated for the local economy. 52.2% of the total direct impact is generated from European visitors who are responsible for $ 237.6 million US dollars. The North American, South American and other regions generated respectively $ 91.9, $ 94.2 and $ 31.2 million US dollars.
Bron: CuracaoChronicle