Curaçao’s tourism sector continues to recover, buoyed by a tourism surge in December. 

The Dutch Caribbean island welcomed a total of 265,000 stay over visitor arrivals in 2021, according to new data from the Curacao Tourist Board. 

That represented 57 percent of the island’s pre-pandemic arrivals in 2019, when Curacao welcomed 463,683 visitors. 

But in December, the island reported 42,281 arrivals — a 95 percent recovery rate from December 2019. 

And the last five months of the year were particularly strong, following what was a largely slow start to the year. 

“we can proudly announce tourism recovery is on the right track, showing another best performing month in line with our pre-pandemic seasonality,” the Curacao Hotel and Tourism Association said in a statement. “We are satisfied with the progress made in the last months of the year, recuperating from the slow start. The collective effort from our local stakeholders combined with our international partners in our main markets made the last six months of the year a success. Assuming the trend continues, we forecast an even better tourism performance in 2022.”