ORANJESTAD — Although the number of tourists in January 2022 lagged behind previous projections, tourism revenues for the economy, the so-called ‘tourism receipts’, show a recovery of 79 percent compared to January 2019, Tourism Minister Dangui Oduber said.

Despite the decline in the number of tourists, the amount of money that the tourists invested in our economy has risen sharply, the minister wrote to the press. These tourism receipts are one of the most important indicators to measure the economic impact of tourism, next to the occupancy rate and the average revenue per hotel room (Revpar). According to the Tourism Minister, the tourism receipts calculated by the Central Bank of Aruba are the most important of these three, because it measures how much money the tourists leave behind in the economy.

Despite the impact of Omicron causing a drop in tourist numbers in January and February, January was not a bad month. The figures show that the tourists of January 2022 spent more money per tourist than the tourists of January 2019, writes Minister Oduber. For February, tourism receipts are expected to show a recovery of 81 percent compared to the same month in 2019. The Tourism Minister writes that he remains optimistic about 2022 and that the focus is on a tourism recovery of 100 percent compared to 2019.