Bonaire welcomed 18,169 stay-over visitors in March 2024

Registering a double-digit growth from the North American market 

Bonaire continues to mark significant milestones in its tourism sector as preliminary figures for March 2024 reveal a record-breaking arrival of visitors to the island.

Bonaire announces a historic milestone as preliminary results reveal that the island welcomed a record-breaking 18,169 stayover visitors during March 2024.

Comparatively, in 2023, the total number of visitors amounted to 16,493, while in 2019, it stood at 16,000, signifying a positive trend in Bonaire’s tourism trajectory. This represents an increase of approximately 10% from 2023 to 2024 and a growth of approximately 13.5% from 2019 to 2024.

Dutch visitors remained the largest group, accounting for 39% of the total, followed by Americans at 29%. Curacao, Canada, Germany, and Aruba contributed significantly to Bonaire’s tourism industry.

In March 2024, Bonaire experienced a remarkable surge of 37% in American visitors compared to the previous year and a substantial increase of 186% in Canadian visitors. The increase of North American visitors is due to the increase of flights by United, Delta, AA and the welcoming of the new WestJet flight out of Toronto, Canada.  Despite these overall positive trends, there was a slight decrease in Dutch visitors from 7541 in 2023 to 7120 in 2024, representing approximately a 5.6% decrease. This decrease is due to the drop in frequencies and seats available on the AMS-BON route due to change of aircraft equipment by our Dutch airline partners and number of rotations that were scheduled.

US visitors visited primarily from New York, Florida, California, Pennsylvania and other major states. The age groups with the highest representation were 45-54 (20.7%) and 55-64 (20.5%), indicating a strong interest from mature travelers. Dutch visitors mainly hailed from North Holland, South Holland, and North Brabant, with the dominating age group being 55-64 (27.6%) and 45-54 (18%).

Furthermore, Bonaire’s welcomed 48,233 cruise visitors with 23 cruise ships in February of 2024.

For more detailed statistics and information about Bonaire’s tourism performance, please visit our official website at www.bonaireisland.com or reach out to us via email at info@bonaireisland.com.