There are 12 countries that have the most visitors and some already equal pre-pandemic figures (2019)
International tourism in Costa Rica continues in full recovery after two years of the pandemic and, although the figures for 2019 have not yet been reached, some tourist-sending countries are approaching or even exceeding that year’s visitation.
Data from the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), based on information from the General Directorate of Migration and Immigration (DGME), show that from January to October 2022, almost 1.9 million foreign tourists arrived in the country, almost double the same period in 2021, but close to 700,000 less than in 2019.
In those 10 months of 2022, the country where the most tourists came from was the United States, with just over 1 million, about 56% of the total.
Canada and Germany complete the top three. Nicaragua and Panama also appear within the first 10, since there is a constant land entry. If these two countries are excluded, Guatemala and Switzerland enter the group of the main origins of tourists.
From South America, those who visit Costa Rica the most are Colombians, since 20,367 tourists from that country arrived in national territory in that period. In the case of the Caribbean, tourists from the Dominican Republic are the most common, with nearly 3,000 Dominicans who traveled to Costa Rica.
From Asia more tourists arrive from India, with 4,881 visitors; while from the Middle East, the Lebanese are the most tourists in Costa Rica, with 139 people.
In Africa, the 1,369 tourists from South Africa make that country the country that attracts the most tourists to Costa Rica on the continent.
Some of these countries show an almost complete recovery compared to the pre-pandemic figures of 2019.
From the United States, for example, only 3.5% fewer tourists arrived between January and October 2022 than the same period in 2019. Germany and the United Kingdom are also around 3% apart.
Other European countries such as Spain or France are further behind, while the most positive numbers are from the Netherlands, which has already reached the number of visitors in 2019, and Switzerland, which registered more than 10% more tourists than in the first 10 months of that year.
On the contrary, the Central American countries and Mexico still have a long way to go to approach the visitation of 2019, with a reduction of even more than 40%.
In the available data from the ICT, it can be seen that March is the month with the highest number of arrivals of tourists, while September is the month with the lowest number of visits.
