Q COSTARICA — Tourist arrivals in Costa Rica by air fell 4.5% in June 2025 compared to the same month the previous year, according to the most recent report from the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT) – Costa Rican Tourism Board.
This decline reinforces the downward trend affecting the main channel for international visitors, with the exception of April, when the flow increased by 4.6%.
Since November 2024, the country has reported consecutive declines in tourist arrivals by air.
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Data shows that the United States, the largest source market, saw a 4.9% decrease in air arrivals compared to June 2024. In total, 159,401 U.S. tourists entered the country that month, well below the 167,554 last year.
Meanwhile, visits from Canadians also declined by 5.7%, while visits from Mexico fell 11.4%.
European air tourism showed an overall drop of 9.3% in June. Notable declines were from Germany (-13.7%) and Spain (-14.4%), two priority markets in the ICT’s tourism attraction campaigns.
Other significant declines were from France (-14.2%) and the United Kingdom (-3.3%), countries that traditionally maintain high demand for the nature and adventure destinations that Costa Rica offers.
While Costa Rica reports a sustained decline, global tourism maintains a positive trend. Between January and March 2025, year-on-year arrivals grew 5% (more than 3% compared to 2019), totaling approximately 300 million tourists. Asia and the Pacific led the way with a 13% increase, followed by Africa with a 9% increase, while Europe and the Americas each grew by a 2% increase.
According to the UN tourism agency, international tourism has not only fully recovered from the pandemic but has surpassed those levels in terms of travel. The solid start to 2025, with a 5% increase in arrivals and strong regional momentum, reinforces expectations of a new global record in 2025.
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A Challenge, Not a Crisis
On June 17, Costa Rica’s Minister of Tourism, William Rodríguez, told legislators of the Tourism Commission that “we are facing a challenge, not a crisis.”
On that occasion, Rodríguez insisted that these are internal matters for the airlines. For example, they will not have more units available in the short term. This affects the results and decreases the number of seats in Costa Rica. However, the explanations from the leader and the government have changed in the nine months since arrivals changed course.
He also argued that there were destinations in the Middle East and Asia, such as China, that had not fully reopened after the pandemic. Once they reopened, they returned to the competition.
The business sector remains adamant that the country is losing competitiveness. This is a result of the dollar exchange rate, which makes Costa Rica more expensive compared to other nearby destinations in the region and other parts of the world.
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The ICT had projected that starting in April, an increase in tourist arrivals compared to the same period last year, with monthly growths of between 2% to 4%, but the forecast has not been met.
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