Tourism in Colombia during the 2011-2012 holiday season was up on last year, figures released by Colombia’s hotel association showed Tuesday.
The Hotel and Tourism Association of Colombia, COTELCO, said that hotel occupancy in Colombia during the 2011-2012 holiday season, which spans December and the first half of January, was up 4% on the same period previous year.
This equated to a 60% average hotel occupancy in the country’s 16 top tourist destinations.
Colombia’s Caribbean islands San Andres and Providencia overtook coastal city Cartagena to become the country’s most visited destinations during this period.
While Bogota hotels cleared out during the holiday season, having among the lowest occupancy, villages around the capital city such as Melgar, Girardo and Mariquita had hotel occupancy at 100%.
Against the national tendency, hotel occupation in Medellin dropped, making Colombia’s second largest city the 8th most visited destination during the holiday season, significantly higher than Bogota.
Behind Caribbean coastal destinations, which dominated the top five spots, inland cities and regions with important festivals, such as Manizales Fair in Manizales, in the central Caldas department, had high numbers of visitors.
Figures did not indicate whether those traveling were Colombians, or tourists from abroad.