Tourism Is One of Nicaragua’s Main Economic Powerhouses

The Nicaragua Tourism Institute (INTUR) is hoping to close 2004 with $170 million in gains, a figure that will keep the local leisure industry high on the list of the country’s top moneymakers, alongside such commodities as seafood, coffee and meat.

According to stats provided by INTUR this week, as many as 447,500 tourists visited the Central American nation in the first three quarters of the year, up 16.4 percent from the first nine months of 2003.

The same sources told Caribbean News Digital would this trend go on into the end of the year, Nicaragua could snap up some 578,000 visitors in the twelve-month period.

Nicaragua’s major markets are neighboring Central American nations (60.3 percent of the total), North America (26.4 percent), Europe (8.7 percent), South America (2.5 percent), and the rest of the world (2.1 percent).