Puerto Rico is a Caribbean island located in the northeast territory of the United States. Cuba and Puerto Rico have long contended for the title of the Caribbean’s top tourism destination. The tourism industry in Puerto Rico has benefited from the United States’ strained relations with Cuba. For American and international visitors, Puerto Rico contends with the Dominican Republic, Aruba, Jamaica, and Florida. Tourists flying from Puerto Rico to Saint Barthélemy take a connecting flight.

Given its numerous natural beauties, cultural and historical sites, concerts, and sporting events, tourism has been a major source of money for Puerto Rico for decades. Tourists from the United States do not require a passport to enter Puerto Rico, and the ease of travel draws a large number of visitors from the mainland each year.

One of the best sites in the world to catch Atlantic tarpon in Puerto Rico. The gaming industry contributes significantly to the tourism industry (employing 3,409 people in 2017), and it includes 20 casinos, all of which are affiliated with hotels and resorts that serve as tourist destinations. Casinos must be related to hotels and resorts, and must be placed inside zonas históricas, antiguas, o de interés turstico historically significant tourism zones, according to Puerto Rico’s laws. In the gambling sector of Puerto Rico, there is a considerable and growing Chinese presence; currently, 10% of the casinos are fully or partially controlled by Chinese persons or corporations. In addition, the number of Chinese tourists is increasing. Puerto Rico’s contribution to GDP (percentage of GDP) from travel and tourism was 6.9% in 2019. The government, on the other hand, does not track the exact contribution of the gambling industry to the tourist and travel industries.

Allegations surfaced in late November 2019 indicating that 90 Royal Caribbean ship calls to San Juan might be canceled in 2020 and 2021. This decision would result in 360,000 fewer visitors and a $44 million loss to the island’s economy. In addition, 30 cruise ship departures from San Juan were canceled.

Puerto Rico Tourism Statistics

  1. In 2018, Puerto Rico’s tourism revenue was $3,303,000,000.00, down 14.61 percent from 2017.
  2. In 2019, tourism in Puerto Rico enticed 3.7 million tourists, up from 1.0 million in 2015 and a significant increase from the 2010–2014 average of 3.1 million.
  3. By the end of 2019, the number of international tourists traveling to Puerto Rico is observed to be 2.4 billion.
  4. Despite the devastation inflicted by previous hurricanes, most notably Maria in 2017, a survey published in April 2019 indicated that 1.7 million cruise ship passengers are scheduled to arrive this fiscal year.
  5. The total amount spent on tourism by the tourists in Puerto Rico in 2019 was $3,612,000,000.00, up 9.36% from 2018.
  6. In absolute terms, Puerto Rico ranked 46th in the globe in 2020, with 4 million tourists.
  7. The outcome is a much more comparable image when the tourist numbers are compared to the population of Puerto Rico with rated 42nd in the world having 1.2 tourists per resident.
  8. The island placed 16th in the Caribbean.
  9. The tourism industry alone brought in roughly 2.92 billion dollars to Puerto Rico.
  10. This is equivalent to 2.8 percent of the country’s GDP and around 36% of all foreign tourism receipts in the Caribbean.
  11. Tourism revenues totaled 1.83 billion dollars in 1995, accounting for nearly 4.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
  12. At the time, this equated to approximately 4.09 million tourists and 447 USD per person.
  13. The revenue in the latest year of the study was 2.92 billion dollars, representing 2.8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
  14. The average traveler now spends $752 on his vacation in Puerto Rico.
  15. For the first time in 2021, lodging in Puerto Rico reached $1 billion, and by year’s end, it had climbed by $1.3 billion.
  16. This is a 37 percent increase over the previous high, established in 2019.
  17. With $445 million reported through May, the destination’s year-to-date revenue is the greatest in its history.
  18. In the first few months of 2019, a total of 1.67 million visitors arrived on the Island via the San Juan, Ponce, and Aguadilla airports, the largest number of airport arrivals in the January-April timeframe in the Island’s history.
  19. Tourist arrivals in Puerto Rico fell to 55.30 thousand in March 2020, down from 196.60 thousand in February.
  20. In 2019, the island hosted 1.7 million visitors from the United States.
  21. The United States contributes 27 percent of all tourist earnings to Ireland; revenue from American visitors totaled €1.6 billion (roughly $1.7 billion) in 2019.
  22. Travelers from the western United States account for one-fifth of all U.S. vacationers targeted for Ireland.
  23. They are frequent travelers who are more inclined to stay for extended periods (62 percent stay six nights or more as opposed to 56 percent of other U.S. visitors).
  24. According to Aerostar Airport Holdings, 4.84 million passengers will arrive at Luis Muoz Marn airport in 2021, reaching its highest point in a decade.
  25. This is not only 2.6 percent greater than 2019, the year with the highest number of travelers in the last decade, but it also includes more visitors.
  26. According to Airline Data, Inc., 62.3 percent of entrances were tourists rather than residents through September, up from 59 percent in 2019.
  27. The Caribbean as a whole had a 68 percent drop in visitor numbers in 2020, while Puerto Rico saw a 47 percent drop.
  28. Because of this high degree of industry success, the leisure and hospitality sectors of the economy were able to employ around 80,000 people by December 2021.
  29. It’s 29,600 more people than working in these industries in April 2020, when the pandemic halted much of the economy.
  30. According to the PRTC, the boom in Puerto Rico tourism in 2021 was aided by a 24 percent increase in hotels, with 4,306 registered on the island as of late September 2021, up from 3,471 in 2020.
  31. This statistic is among the highest for a month in the recent decade, and it’s only 500 jobs below pre-COVID-19 levels, according to the US Department of Labor Statistics.
  32. With more than $11.1 million received in July 2021, it was the largest monthly figure ever.
  33. Before this year, the previous highest monthly total was $7.06 million, which was collected in July 2017.
  34. According to Trading Economics global macro models and analyst predictions, tourist arrivals in Puerto Rico are likely to reach 70.00 thousand by the end of this quarter.
  35. Tourist arrivals in Puerto Rico are expected to reach 140.00 in the next 12 months, according to our projections.
  36. According to Arrivals, travelers to Puerto Rico in 2021 will spend an average of 4.6 days there present a significant increase.
  37. This is an increase of 5% over what we saw in 2019.
  38. Visitors exposed to Discover Puerto Rico’s marketing spend an average of 6.3 days on the island, according to Adara, a firm that analyses the trends of consumers exposed to advertising.
  39. According to a tourism analytics report, the total air passenger movement was observed to be 531,629 passengers in January 2021 presenting a change of 40.5% to January 2022 (746,697).
  40. The hotel performance figures are based on a study of data from the PRTC’s endorsed 86 hotels/resorts (12,771 rooms) by 2021.
  41. The national econometric models predict that in the long run, Puerto Rico’s Tourist Arrivals were approximately 165.00 thousand in 2021 and will be 193.00 thousand till December 2022.

References

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/PRI/puerto-rico/tourism-statistics#:~:text=Puerto%20Rico%20tourism%20statistics%20for,a%202.67%25%20decline%20from%202016.

https://www.worlddata.info/america/puerto-rico/tourism.php

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.ARVL?locations=PR

https://www.discoverpuertorico.com/industry/download/592056-discover-puerto-rico-announces-record-year-tourism.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Puerto_Rico

https://tourismanalytics.com/puerto-rico.html

https://tradingeconomics.com/puerto-rico/tourist-arrivals

https://www.bizlatinhub.com/puerto-rico-tourism-2021/

https://www.travelagentcentral.com/destinations/discover-puerto-rico-announces-record-breaking-numbers

https://www.theweeklyjournal.com/business/record-tourism-numbers-for-puerto-rico/article_90b37a48-e40e-11eb-bf5f-ff56ce538638.html