Willemstad – September 21, 2021 – CHATA issues the Hotel Performance for the month of August with very good occupancies. July showed slightly higher occupancy versus July 2019 (+6.1%), and now August is also showing good recovery figures compared to 2019. Other parameters being the Average Daily Rate and Revenue Per Available Room show very positive figures compared to August 2019. The sector is very content that the larger hotels are finally showing strong recovery after the negative first half of this year. For September a decline is already noted as the historic low season kicked in, but CHATA is still consciously positive for the last half year of 2021. It is important to keep the spread of the virus under control as Curaçao needs to stay on ‘code yellow’ for the Netherlands and the CDC needs to put Curaçao back on a lower risk level again. Having the Digital Covid Certificate available soon for Curacao, CHATA is advocating for the same policies seen in Europe and the USA. It’s noted that more and more countries are accepting fully vaccinated travels with little to no testing, as traveling for pleasure after Covid is not as easy as it was. With Curaçao having extra testing in place to limit the spread of the Delta variant, the sector believes it is possible to promote fully vaccinated travelers to come to our island. It’s important to make a sound decision on this topic once an evaluation has been carried out regarding the number of fully vaccinated tourists testing positive after the 3rd day antigen test.
Slight decrease compared to August 2019
In August of 2021 Curaçao had a hotel occupancy of 70.6%. Compared to 2020 (32.6%) this is a significant increase of 116.4%. However, if we look at the occupancy data pre-COVID (August 2019), this is a slight decrease of 5.7%. The average daily rate also increased with 37.3% compared to 2020, to $180.39. In comparison to August of 2019, this is also an increase of 16%. As for the revenue per available room, numbers indicate a huge increase of 197.2% compared to 2020. From $42.88 in 2020 to $127.42 in 2021. Even compared to the pre-COVID data, the revenue per available room increased with 9.3%.
| August | 2021 | 2020 | 2021 vs. 2020 | 2019 | 2021 vs. 2019 |
| Occ. | 70.6% | 32.6% | +116.4% | 74.9% | -5.7% |
| ADR | $180.39 | $131.35 | +37.3% | $155.55 | +16% |
| RevPAR | $127.42 | $42.88 | +197.2% | $116.56 | +9.3% |
*Smith Travel Research (STR) is the leading global provider of competitive benchmarking, information services and research to the hotel industry.
If we compare the above data with Caribbean lodging performance, it looks like this:
| August | 2021 | 2020 | 2021 vs. 2020 | 2019 | 2021 vs. 2019 |
| Occ. | 51.8% | 20.30% | +154.9% | 61.9% | -16.3% |
| ADR | $220.44 | $167.00 | +32% | $183.13 | +20.4% |
| RevPAR | $114.15 | $33.93 | +236.4% | $113.35 | +0.7% |
In August of 2021 the Caribbean had a hotel occupancy of 51.8%. Compared to 2020 (20.3%) this is a significant increase of 154.9%. However, if we look at the occupancy data pre-COVID (August 2019), this is a decrease of 16.3%. The average daily rate also increased with 32% compared to 2020, to $220.44. In comparison to August of 2019, this is also an increase of 20.4%. As for the revenue per available room, numbers indicate a significant increase of 236.4% compared to 2020. From $33.93 in 2020 to $114.15 in 2021. Compared to the pre-COVID data, the revenue per available room slightly increased with 0.7%.
Back to the seasonality
The most impressive performance figures, of the last two months, was that the recovery after the 2nd lockdown in March/April was much stronger and faster than the recovery back in 2020. Curaçao has shown that recovery is possible and hard work is required to maintain these strong recovery figures. The recovery rate depends on the COVID infections on the island, keeping Curaçao in the low-risk countries list with our key markets and reach the highest vaccination coverage as possible. For Curaçao to recover from COVID, just like many other countries around the world, it will take time. Nevertheless, Curaçao’s tourism sector has shown its resilience and ability to recover fast. It’s important to move towards a more sustainable recovery and with the Digital Covid Certificate, Curaçao will be able to accept fully vaccinated travelers to enter Curaçao without or with less testing requirements. Together with the Crisis Team, CHATA and the sector partners are looking into this matter.
Urgent clarity on continued financial support
Since the financial support came to a halt in May, CHATA is also advocating for a prolongation of the financial support (TVL and NOW) for the last half year of 2021 as it is urgently required to support this recovery. The huge losses suffered in 2020 and the first six months of 2021 are not going to recover from it without that support. Even though tourists fortunately decided to come back to visit our island in big numbers. CHATA believes that all tourism & hospitality partners need to work together, and only with the support of the Government, in terms of the last phase of the financial aid program, we can get our economy back on its feet.
