…10% increase in stayover arrivals year to date…
WILLEMSTAD – November 26, 2019
October Visitor Arrivals 2019
The Curaçao Tourist Board (CTB) is reporting a slight decrease in stayover visitor arrivals for October 2019. We welcomed 34,525 visitors, which is precisely 1,137 less than previous year. The year to date for stayover arrivals is now 380,966, which is 10% increase over previous year.
Our leading producing region Europe grew 5% for the month. Arrivals form the Caribbean region jumped 28% for the month of October. North America recorded a decline of 17%, while South America declined by 30% primarily because the Venezuelan border was closed and it was open at this time last year. The significant increase from Europe and the Caribbean region is directly related to the autumn break, increased service out of Amsterdam as well as the start of new service twice weekly from Port of Spain with Caribbean Airlines. Curaçao welcomed 15,708 visitors from The Netherlands thereby accounting for an increase of 5%. Visitors from Trinidad & Tobago doubled in October 2019.
The overall visitor nights fell 5% short in October 2019. In total 293 thousand visitor nights are registered. Out of Europe, tourists spent 202 thousand nights in Curaçao, a 1% increase in visitor nights. North and South American visitors spent respectively 32 and 36 thousand visitor nights in October. Visitors from the Caribbean region spent 20 thousand nights in Curaçao.
Hotel performance CHATA
Preliminary October 2019 figures show that Curaçao had a hotel occupancy of 66.3%. Compared to the same month of 2018 (68.5%), this is a decrease of 2.2 percentage points.
The average daily rate (ADR) increased with 3.9% compared to 2018, from $138.96 to $144.35 in 2019. As for the revenue per available room (RevPAR), numbers indicate a small increase of 0.6%. The revenue per available room in October 2018 was $95.15 and in 2019 increased to $95.69.
Cruise Arrivals CPA
The October 2019 figures show that 21 vessels called at the Willemstad Port compared to 20 vessels in the same month in 2018, an increase of 5%. A total of 47,223 passengers arrived in the month in 2019, this was 2,426 passengers (4.9%) less than the same month in 2018 due to a slightly lower occupancy rate of the vessels. The month of October marks the start of the cruise high season, during which we expect a busy fourth quarter with a continued growth compared to 2018.
Year to date: January through October 2019
January through October the stayover arrivals grew by 10%, which in absolute numbers is 380 thousand stayover visitors.
January through October the cruise arrivals grew by 2%, which in absolute numbers is 588 thousand cruise visitors.
January through October the overall arrivals grew by 5%, which in absolute numbers is 985 thousand visitors.
