It is no secret that in Costa Rica the tourism sector took the biggest impact from Covid-19 pandemic; the numbers shared by the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT) reflect this reality, for the month of March the country registered only 127,201 international arrivals, a considerable downfall from March 2019 when this number was 276,036.

The difference of -51.4% is just the beginning, the month of April will see the consequences of the closing of borders that went in effect on March 18 and will extend through April 30.
“The numbers of tourism visitation for March reflect the deep repercussions and the effect on the tourism sector, the most affected by Covid-19”, commented María Amalia Revelo, Minister of Tourism. “This crisis affects as a group the entire tourism industry: hotels, transportation services, travel agencies, tour operators, guides, chambers and associations and hundreds of productive linkages”, she added.

The World Tourism Organization estimates that arrival of international tourists to the different destinations will go down between 20% and 30% during 2020 in comparison to 2019; however, the WTO also highlights that these numbers must be interpreted carefully since the nature of this crisis is extremely uncertain.

“Months and years will go by to be able to recover the place we had before this crisis and recover the visitation of 3.1 million international arrivals we had in 2019”, stated Revelo, who also affirmed that national tourism will be vital to reactivate the economy and the sector when the situation allows it.