Willemstad – Minister of Economic Development, Dr Steven Martina together with Ministry of Economic Development (MEO) with partners Curaçao Tourism Board (CTB), Curaçao Hospitality And Tourism Association (CHATA) and Curaçao Ports Authority (CPA) held a press conference in which together gave a retrospective on tourism during the year 2017 and also gave their expectations for 2018.
The tourism sector holds a significant importance due to its economic contribution to our Island in creating jobs and attracting new visitors. For this reason, MEO, CTB, CHATA and CPA held a press conference in order to give better insights on the sector.
The year 2017 was a year filled with new challenges for the tourism sector in Curaçao. Factors like the decrease in tourists originating from Venezuela and the situation that emerged from Insel Air all had a negative impact on the numbers within the tourism sector in the past year. Based on the area of expertise of the Stakeholders present at the press conference held on February 6th , 2018 will end on a positive note in terms of the tourism sector.
CTB predicts that there will be an increase of airlines that will visit our island this year. Curaçao will have a new route with Airline TUI from Brussels in 2018 and there are many other airlines that confirmed their increase in capacity on flights to Curaçao. In addition to this, CTB will also launch a global campaign this year to further promote Curaçao as a destination, to sustain additional flights and to create more demand for Curaçao.
Compared to 2016, CHATA reports that 2017 was a year of growth in the hotel industry in Curaçao. Based on the occupancy rates until now and seeing the amount of airlines and how frequent they will be visiting Curaçao, CHATA is optimistic that we have all the ingredients to make 2018 a successful year in the Tourism industry.
MEO also foresees significant growth for 2018. For this year, MEO expects the Tourism sector to increase with an estimate of 0.8% to our economy. This estimate is based on the 3% growth in hospitality on our island and the 9% growth on cruise ship tourists in comparison to 2017.
Curaçao Ports Authority reported an immense growth in 2017 in cruise ship tourists. Due to the construction of the second Megapier and a total increase in cruise ships visiting us, Curaçao can count on a 35% increase in cruise tourism compared to the year 2016. As for 2018, CPA predicts that cruise tourism will continue to grow for us. CPA expects this to be an estimate of 16% more that what we had in 2017.
For the presentation, please click here.