Above: the Santa Barbara resort in Curacao (CJ Photo)
By the Caribbean Journal staff
The Dutch Caribbean’s tourism sector is surging.
Curacao received 122,074 visitors in the first quarter of 2015, a 13 percent increase compared to the same period in 2014.
That was a major shift compared to 2015, when the island reported a modest 2.5 percent increase in tourism.
The improvement was likely driven in large part by new JetBlue service between New York’s John F Kennedy Airport and Curacao that launched late last year.
Additionally, the Dutch Caribbean island has seen new flights out of Canada, with more service set to launch this summer on Air Canada out of Toronto.
Last year, Curacao welcome a total of 450,953 stayover visitors.
Curacao’s growth comes as its Dutch Caribbean neighbour, Aruba, reported a whopping 20.2 percent increase in arrivals in the first quarter.
Only Aruba and Cuba had higher rates of increase in the first quarter among destinations with complete reporting, according to data from the Caribbean Tourism Organization.