WILLEMSTAD – Curaçao has become significantly more dependent on tourism over the past decade and a half, as several of the economic pillars that once provided the island with a more diversified economic base have weakened or disappeared.
A new working paper by researchers Robert Hieroms and Raïna Hieroms of the Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten (CBCS) shows just how dramatic that transformation has been. Tourism accounted for 21.7 percent of Curaçao’s total foreign exchange earnings in 2010. By 2024, that share had risen to 53.9 percent.
The development means that more than half of the foreign exchange Curaçao earns through exports now comes from tourism.
According to the researchers, Curaçao historically had a more diversified economy than many other Caribbean islands. Economic activity was supported by several sectors, including transportation, oil refining, international financial services, the free zone and tourism.
That structure has changed considerably. The closure of the refinery in 2019, bankruptcies of local airlines and the decline of the international financial services sector have all contributed to increasing the relative importance of tourism.
Between 2010 and 2024, tourism represented an average of 33.4 percent of Curaçao’s total export earnings. That remained considerably below the Caribbean average of 63.4 percent over the same period, but the average masks the rapid shift that has occurred in recent years. Since 2021, tourism’s share of Curaçao’s foreign exchange earnings from exports has consistently exceeded 40 percent.
The trend has important implications for the economy. Tourism generates employment, income and foreign exchange, but greater dependence on one sector also increases Curaçao’s exposure to developments outside its control.
Exchange rates, economic growth in important source markets, unemployment abroad, international oil prices and changes in travel demand can therefore have increasingly significant consequences for the local economy.
The CBCS research focuses particularly on fluctuations of the euro against the U.S. dollar. Because the Caribbean guilder is pegged to the dollar, a weaker euro makes Curaçao relatively more expensive for European visitors.
The issue is particularly relevant because Europe, and especially the Netherlands, remains one of Curaçao’s most important tourism markets.
The findings highlight a broader challenge for Curaçao: while the rapid expansion of tourism has become one of the principal drivers of economic growth, the disappearance or weakening of other economic pillars has simultaneously made the country increasingly reliant on the continued success of that industry.