As of September, the Tourism Institute recorded more than 1,848,000 tourists visiting the country.

That is over 303,000 more visitors than 1,545,000 tourists who entered in the same period in 2022.

If this trend continues, by the end of the year authorities project that about 2.5 million tourists will have arrived in the country, exceeding the 2.3 million tourists registered last year.  

Most of the tourists, about 1.3 million arrived by air, which is equivalent to 72% of the total number of tourists who arrived as of September.

Of these, more than 69% of tourists entered the country at the Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO) in Alajuela Province. While over 31% entered the Daniel Oduber International Airport (LIR) in Guanacaste Province.

The rest, about half a million visitors, entered via land ports of entry or by sea.

 

The United States continues to be the leading nationality visiting Costa Rica. Authorities documented over 1 million tourists from the U.S., which is equivalent to 55% of the total number of visitors.

Also, about 171,000 Canadian tourists visited the country, while over 59,000 came from Mexico.

Authorities registered more than 194,000 European tourists. Of these, the majority came from Germany with more than 53,000 travelers, over 51,000 from France, the U.K. with over 49,000 tourists and more than 41,000 visitors from Spain, among other countries.

Statistics show that the average stay of tourists is 13 nights and on average they spend $1,600 during their vacation.

The institute has launched many international advertising campaigns encouraging tourism to Costa Rica. Recently, authorities with representatives of 20 tourism companies, participated in the IMEX America Convention Tourism Fair that took place in Las Vegas, U.S.A.

Tourism is one of the most important economic sectors in Costa Rica.  Last year, about 2.3 million tourists visited the country. That is one million more visitors than in 2021.

 

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