As Curaçao continues to shatter tourism records, one of the region’s leading tourism executives opines that the Curaçao Tourist Board (CTB) might be a model for others to follow, given its significant achievement in using data and analytics to overcome market challenges.

The Dutch Caribbean destination recently reported close to a half-million stayover visitors in 2022 and there’s no letting up, with January 2023 arrivals eclipsing the 2022 number by a whopping 35 percent.

The Caribbean’s travel and tourism industry is no doubt making a strong rebound, and while results vary, some destinations are recording even more impressive results than the 2019 banner tourism year.

During the Caribbean Tourism Organisation’s (CTO) business meetings in Curaçao last week, many of the region’s tourism directors, ministers and commissioners of tourism spoke about the exciting state of the industry, replete with opportunities for stakeholders, not the least of whom are the residents of the Caribbean.

The results of a new study, revealing the safest places in Europe to travel to, were released today. The study analysed 9 metrics that contribute towards how safe an area may be such as homicides, assaults, road fatalities, natural disaster risk, and global peace index, to find which European country is the safest.

As global tourism stakeholders and policymakers commemorate the first official Global Tourism Resilience Day, Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett today issued a call for the creation of a global tourism resilience fund to support tourism-dependent nations in periods of disruption.
 
The call came as key players in tourism from around the world, including the Caribbean and Africa, devoted the third day of the first-ever Global Tourism Resilience Conference to continuing discussions on the: Road to Global Sustainability and Development. Minister Bartlett expressed that “while we talk about building resilience for tourism we have to focus in the wider perspective on social, economic, political, health and security disruptions.”

According to the latest data from Trip.com Group (Ctrip), Chinese multinational online travel company that provides services including accommodation reservation, transportation ticketing, packaged tours and corporate travel management, bookings by Chinese tourists traveling to foreign destinations spiked by 640% during the Lunar New Year festival vs the same period last year, while foreign hotel bookings have quadrupled.

Adriana Peña, wearing the costume Lisboa, designed by Santi Castro, is the Queen of the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife 2023. The candidate was crowned during a gala held last night at the International Trade Fair and Congress Centre of the capital.

The court of honour of the Tenerife Carnival is completed by the first lady, Hirisley Jiménez, with Metamorphosis (designed by Daniel Pages); Laura Fernández, with Así soy – this is me - (Sedomir Rodríguez); Carmen Hibner, Un mar de consciencia – sea of consciousness - (Alfonso Baute) and Marta Santana, with Historia de una reina – the story of a queen - (Alexis Santana).