WILLEMSTAD – In the first ten months of the year the number of stay over arrivals visiting Curaçao grew by 3% from 367,326 to 379.277. An additional 11.951 stay over arrivals was registered with growth coming from the European,

North American and the Caribbean region. The regions grew respectively by 4%, 22% and 2%. The South American region recorded a decrease of 2% during the first ten months. The market share from the main regions is Europe (42.3%), South America (28.8%), North America (17.1%), Caribbean (7.6%) and others (4.3%).

Utilizing the ‘Turistika Model’, CTB and MEO calculated that during the first ten months of 2015 the tourism sector was directly responsible for generating $362.5 million US dollars into the local economy. There has been an increase in direct spending where last year the first ten months of 2014 visitors generated a total of $340.7 million US dollars into the economy. European visitors are responsible for 45.5% of the total expenditure on island. Altogether Europeans spent a total $165.5 million US dollars. They were followed by the South Americans who spent $94.7 million US dollars and the North Americans who spent $70.2 million US dollars. The Caribbean visitors spent a total of $20.4 million US dollars in 2015.

As stated previously, the ‘Turistika Model’ shows a total direct spending from January through October 2015 of $362.5 million US dollars. This direct spending of the overall visitors transpired mainly in the accommodation, food & beverage, shopping activities, transportation sector and direct taxes. The share from the total spending is respectively 36.2%, 24.0%, 22.9%, 9.3% and 7.6%.

Bron: CuracaoChronicle