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Visitor interest in Puerto Viejo continues to grow
Posted by Editor | January 3, 2010 | Categories: Site news, Tourism | 3 Comments
While most hotels and other businesses reported a slow 3rd and 4th quarter of 2009, the end of the year brought high occupancy rates and growing visitor interest to Puerto Viejo. A walk through center of town during the Christmas Holidays showed a very bustling town full of Ticos and foreigners.
 Downtown Puerto Viejo, Dec 19, 2009. Photo by drewdomkus. |
The Costa Rica Chamber of Hotels surveyed hotels around the country and the Caribbean hotels surveyed had a 100% occupancy rate. Other beach areas also reported very strong occupancy numbers although San Jose results were less positive.
Here at Puerto Viejo Satellite, the year also ended very strong with more visitors to the site than ever before: December ended with a record 15,735 different visitors coming to the website (32% over last Dec) and over 34,000 page views (37% over last Dec)! That indicates a lot of potential visitors researching the area for the future vacation planning. Of the visitors about 40% surfed the site from the United States, 10% from Canada, 26% from within Costa Rica and the remainder from the rest of the world.
The site also hit a new high ranking on the Alexa web tracking service; steadily rising through the rankings to break through into the world’s top 500,000 websites and is currently ranked 455,390. This is substantially higher traffic than any of the other Puerto Viejo area websites.
Why are these numbers significant? Vacations always start with research and planning. Bigger numbers can indicate more people are looking to plan their vacation on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. An informal survey shows that much of Puerto Viejo’s popularity has come at the expense of the traditional Pacific vacation crowd. Despite decreased travelers overall due to economic slowdown, there continues to be a growing interest in the South Caribbean of Costa Rica.
We attribute this to our great community of users who over the year have left 100’s of comments on listings and on news articles and have helped us keep all our information current. There are now 204 places listed on the map: hotels, restaurants, stores, services, tours and more. The site has also had a lot of new features added over the last year to keep up with the growing interest in the area and make one comprehensive place where visitors can find out everything they need to know about Puerto Viejo.
Here’s to a prosperous and safe 2010 for residents and visitors alike!
Comments
3 Comments so far
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At 100% occupation rate there room for more growth in the hotel sector and particularly in the more upscale four and five star segment that is basically non existent on the east coast.
Congratulations on your success PV Satellite. I for one always recommend my friends to your site for the most comprehensive content on the area.
I read your story with great interest. Can you possibly send me more information on the survey as I think they missed our hotel.
Thanks!