Costa Rica received 967,820 tourists by air in the first four months of the year, that is, a -0.7% variation compared to the same period in 2019, when 974,718 tourists visited us. These figures are extremely positive and encouraging for the tourism sector, which is strengthened by the recovery of markets such as the United States, Canada, and Europe, which have already exceeded the figures for 2019.
“The first four-month period has been excellent and the figures show it, we have carried out joint work with the private sector that is paying off. We are practically at the numbers of tourist visits by air compared to 2019. We have already recovered the markets of the United States, Canada and Europe. This shows that we are heading in the right direction and that everything we do is looking for economic reactivation and job creation so that Costa Ricans can live better," said William Rodríguez, Minister of Tourism. The United States, our main issuing market, registered the arrival by air of 536,056 tourists between January and April, exceeding by 5.4% the number that visited us in the first four months of 2019 when 508,454 tourists did.
North America records 4.2% more tourist arrivals, that is, 691,272 people, while Canada also moves positively and adds 131,956 tourists in the four-month period, 6% more than in 2019 when 124,437 visited us. tourists. Between January and April, 185,733 tourists arrived from Europe by air, which means a 5.5% increase in visitation compared to the first four-month period of 2019. France is our first issuer with the arrival in the four-month period of 34,911 tourists , followed by Germany with 32,766, the United Kingdom is third with 31,390, Spain is fourth with 14,364 and the Netherlands is fifth with 11,849 tourists.
For its part, Mexico, another of the priority markets for the country, continues the reactivation process and reaches almost 77% of the figures for the first four-month period of 2019. The Juan Santamaría International Airport registered 652,371 international arrivals, representing 93% of the pre-pandemic numbers, while Guanacaste Airport surpassed the figures of 2019 by accounting for a total of 315,086 arrivals between January and April 2023, 15.9% more travelers than four years ago. These figures show that in the first four months of the year, all routes recorded the entry of more than one million tourists to the country, while March was the best month of the four-month period with the arrival of 293,555 tourists by all routes.