The Nicaraguan Tourism Institute (INTUR by its acronym in Spanish) has released their comprehensive report on Nicaragua Tourism Statistics for 2020.
Go to this link for the full report or it can be found on their web site under the first heading of the pull down menu; “La Institución” and then under “Estadísticas”.
Most of the charts show information from the historical series of reports from 2016 to 2020 and the statistics can be easily compared from year to year.
The stats for the year 2017 indicate the growth in the tourism sector and shows where tourism in Nicaragua was heading prior to the sociopolitical unrest of 2018.
The 2019 stats show the post 2018 recovery beginning and the 2020 numbers show the devastation of the tourism sector caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Volume
Tourists are classed as “pernoctan”, meaning they stay overnight (at least one night) to be counted as such.
Visitors are those that are considered day-trippers. They enter Nicaragua and leave the same day, without staying the night.
Nicaragua Tourism Statistics
In 2020, Nicaragua had 383,979 tourists and 90,442 visitors.
The 2017 numbers were; 1,787,260 tourists and 170,662 visitors.
The pre-covid numbers for 2019 were 1,450,554 tourists and 159,286 visitors.
Where They Came From and How Many in 2020
Central America; 249,178 (1,170,620 in 2017)
North America; 83,528 (440,924 in 2017)
Europe; 22,418 (118,322 in 2017)
Canada represented 3.1% of the total visitors to Nicaragua in 2020 and the USA was 17.7%
Tourists from Central America were 64.9% of total visitors.
Place of Entry
33% of tourists entered from Costa Rica, through the southern border post of Peñas Blancas.
30.7% came in through the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua.
18.8% entered from Honduras, through the northern border post of El Guasaule.
17.5% entered through other border posts.
Tourism Dollars in 2020
Breakdown by quarter of the total of US $198.5 million in tourism dollars that came into Nicaragua in 2020;
1st Quarter US $157.7M (79.4%)
2nd Quarter US $ 6.0M (3%)
3rd Quarter US $ 5.8M (2.9%)
4th Quarter US $ 29M (14.6)
