The arrival of the Carnival Spirit cruise at the Puntarenas Port in Puntarenas Province inaugurated the 2022-2023 cruise season on Friday.

The cruise ship that opened the season belongs to the shipping group Carnival Corporation & PLC, the largest cruise line operator in the world. The ships have been visiting Costa Rica for more than 20 years, they have a capacity of 1,834 passengers and 926 crew members.

This ship makes its 16-day itinerary departing from the Port of Seattle in the U.S., visiting Mexico, Cartagena, Panama and Costa Rica, to end its journey in the Port of Miami, USA.

Tourists from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, among other nationalities, travel on the Carnival Spirit. The stopover in Costa Rica was at least eight hours at the port and passengers toured places such as Monteverde, Esparza, Jacó Beach and Puntarenas City.

According to the Tourism Institute, cruise passengers generate a series of benefits for coastal communities, such as generating income for local tourism businesses such as certified guides, carriers, tours, souvenir shops and restaurants among others.

The income generated by a cruise to the country is estimated at more than $55,000 during their hours at ports, the institute said.

This new season is expected to exceed the number of cruise ships that arrived in 2019, the year before the pandemic, the institute said in its statement.

Between September 2022 and July 2023, the country expects 300 cruise ships to arrive in the country's six cruise ports such as Puntarenas, Caldera, Quepos, Golfito, Coco and Limón.

In 2019, only 250 cruise ships arrived in the country. Authorities expect for the new season to represent a growth of 20%.

Also, it is expected that during the first months of 2023 there will be dates in which up to eight cruise ships will anchor on the same day within the different ports of the Pacific and the Caribbean coasts.

Of these expected cruises, 40% are luxury which brings higher average spending passengers, generating higher economic income for port cities and their inhabitants, the institute said in its statement.

The rest of the cruise ships are expected to be medium and small luxury ships with passengers looking to enjoy activities in the port such as visiting natural areas and beaches.

In May, the last ship of the 2021-2022 cruise season to be anchored in the country was at Puntarenas, the cruise ship MS Queen Elizabeth of the Carnival Corporation.

The tourism sector is slowly recovering after the covid-19 pandemic. As of June, there have been over 1.2 million tourists in Costa Rica.

Last year, over 1.3 million tourists visited Costa Rica.

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