Tourists that visited the country during 2016 spent in average US$1,369.00 and the total amount of visitors that year according to the Costa Rican Tourism Board was of over 2.6 million (considering all different points of access aerial and terrestrial according to statistics by the Costa Rica Tourism Board and Costa Rica Migration Office).

For 2016 the total number of visitors considering all international arrivals through all access points was of 2,925,128 out of which 1,515,880 corresponded to visitors from North America ; 434,884 originated from Europe and 724,638 came from Central America.

Considering the data from 2015, this represents over $3.4 billion which is equivalent to 5.8% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and almost 30% of the country’s exports.

These numbers demonstrate the importance of the tourism sector in the economy of the country, but it also shows the dependency the country has on this industry.

This is the second highest in Latin America, just behind Panama, where the tourism sector reached 10.8% of the GDP, the third position in terms of % related to the GDP went to El Salvador where visitors spent close to $1.2 billion, equivalent to 4.5% of their GDP.

In countries like Mexico, Peru and Brazil, famous for being popular tourism destinations the tourism industry represented only a 1.8%, 2.1% and 0.3% of the GDP respectively.

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) latest annual research, in conjunction with Oxford Economics, shows Travel & Tourism’s contribution to world GDP outpaced the global economy for the sixth consecutive year in 2016, rising to a total of 10.2% of world GDP (US$7.6 trillion). The sector now supports 292 million people in employment – that’s 1 in 10 jobs on the planet.