The colourful streets of Willemstad. The pristine, uncrowded seashores on the west coast. The occasion scene at Mambo. The floating bridge. These Dutch Deal with fries. The blissfully refreshing batidos. The distinctive, genuine resorts, from luxurious resorts to dive spots.
Curacao is crammed with charms and wonders, one thing increasingly more vacationers have been discovering amid the island’s tourism renaissance in the previous couple of years.
So many vacationers, in reality, that the island simply set one other all-time tourism file final 12 months, Caribbean Journal has discovered.
The rising hotspot welcomed over 700,000 stayover guests (that means vacationers who arrived on a aircraft, not a cruise ship) — a whopping 20 p.c bounce over 2023 that made Curacao one of many fastest-growing locations to go to within the Caribbean area.
In actual fact, 2024, noticed virtually 118,000 extra guests than the earlier 12 months, officers informed CJ. (The cruise facet did see critical development, too, with 834,922 passengers).
The expansion was buoyed by a scorching December that was the primary time Curacao has ever welcomed greater than 70,000 guests in a single month.
The most important driver has been the emergence of america as a significant marketplace for the island; from the debut of the brand new Sandals Royal Curacao to a bunch of latest flights from throughout the US, People have been making a beeline for Curacao — with 30 p.c development 12 months over 12 months and 19,069 visits to the island in December alone.
Are you planning a trip to Curacao? You’ll discover one of many extra numerous, fascinating collections of resorts anyplace the broader Caribbean, from fascinating boutique resorts just like the adults-only Kura Botanica ($267 per evening) to the perfectly-situated Renaissance Wind Creek ($274) to the always-happening Avila resort (the latter being one of many island’s high dwell music spots), the place you could find rooms for $409 per evening. And we will’t suggest resorts in Curacao with no nod to certainly one of our favourite luxurious resorts anyplace within the area: the fabulous Baoase Luxurious Resort, a slice of Bali on a personal seaside exterior of the capital.
You might not notice that Curacao has quietly develop into a significant culinary vacation spot, too, from the opening of the famend Brass Boer to distinctive spots like Kandela, amongst others.
For those who’re on the lookout for bigger all-inclusive resorts, you could find that too, with a quietly booming all-inclusive sector on the island, with newer choices like The Rif at Mangrove Seashore Corendon Curaco, a Hilton-portfolio resort that has rooms for $335 per evening.
What about flying to Curacao? It’s simpler than ever. You possibly can fly to the island from the entire main US gateways, together with Miami on American (and, extra just lately, a brand new Fort Lauderdale-Curacao flight on Azul), JetBlue from New York ($455) and Delta from Atlatna (flights at $737 roundtrip).
For extra, go to Curacao.