It is the first time Curaçao came close to half million stayover visitors, by just being 10,442 visitors short. In overall, CTB welcomed a total of 489,558 stayover visitor arrivals in 2022. The first quarter of the year started slow. During that period, we still dealt with the Omicron variant and travel restrictions were in place for some countries. Despite the slow start, the original target to welcome 375,000 visitors in 2022 was realistic and feasible.

CTB saw an increase in stayover arrivals as of April 2022 from all countries of focus. July 2022 was the best performing month of the year, when we welcomed 48,246 stayover arrivals. The last quarter of 2022 remained stable recording a minimum of 44,000 visitors per month. With the achieved performance of 2022 CTB proudly announce it has recuperated from the pandemic and even surpassed previous record-breaking arrivals recorded in 2015, when we welcomed 467,538 stayover visitors.

Last year we have registered record breaking arrivals from the primary countries of focus The Netherlands and United States of America. We have welcomed 237,654 stayover visitors from the Netherlands. In total 278,468 stayover arrivals from Europe are recorded in 2022, also a first. The share of the European visitors in 2022 is 57%.

It is the first time Curaçao has welcomed over 90,000 stayover visitors from the United states of America. Last year a total of 93,428 US visitors flocked to our destination. Altogether, 105,593 North American visitors were welcomed in 2022 to bring the share of the North American region to 22%.

Colombia ended as the third primary market, recording 28,460 stayover arrivals in 2022. The South American countries in general performed above expectation. From Brazil and Suriname, we have welcomed 10,161 and 6,248 visitors, respectively. The secondary countries Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay closed the year recording an all-time high performance, namely 3,409, 3,986 and 2,111 visitors respectively. The share from the South American region is 13%.

From the Caribbean region we have welcomed a total of 29,818 visitors. Our neighboring island Aruba was accountable for 10,935 stayover visitors. A total of 8,608 visitors are registered from the other Dutch Caribbean islands.