Curaçao’s Stayover Tourism Returned To Pre-Pandemic Levels In October

In October, more tourists visited Curaçao than in the same month in 2019. The increase is entirely due to a record number of Dutch tourists who chose to spend their vacation on the island.

This is evident from the latest figures from the CTB tourism bureau. In October, Curaçao had a total of 35,020 stayover visitors. That’s more than the same month in 2019, which was 34,526 visitors, prior to the breakout of the corona pandemic. In an accompanying press release, CTB writes, “For the first time since the lifting of travel restrictions, the number of tourists is higher than in the same month in 2019.”

According to the tourism bureau, “once again a record number of Dutch tourists” visited Curaçao last month, with 22,713 recorded visitors. “For the fourth month in a row, visitors from the Netherlands surpassed the number of visitors from the same month in 2019.” The vast majority of the 25,933 stayover tourists from Europe are Dutch visitors. In October, there were also 1365 German tourists and 646 Belgian tourists. Last month, European visitors stayed on the island for an average of 10.7 nights, up from 8.9 nights in October 2019.

The European tourist market, particularly the Dutch market, has dominated the entire year of 2021 in Curaçao. In the first ten months of 2021, 130.350 stayover tourists came from Europe, including 113.295 from the Netherlands. The North and South American markets are far behind, with 29.506 and 11.817 tourists, respectively, the majority of whom are from the United States (28.408), Colombia (5.068), and Brazil (2.623). And with 1.428 visitors in October and 8.774 in the first ten months of 2021, including 3.836 from Aruba, the Caribbean’s share of staycation tourism is even smaller.

In addition to the increase in stayovers, cruise tourism has also picked back up in 2021. The CTB recorded 43.401 cruise tourists in Curaçao over the course of the first ten months of the year.