59% of visitors to Puerto Rico were women and 63% are Puerto Ricans residing in other jurisdictions

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IEPR
18 December 2025

59% of visitors to Puerto Rico were women and 63% are Puerto Ricans residing in other jurisdictions

This is according to the Visitor Profile for Fiscal Year 2023-2024 published by the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics in collaboration with the Tourism Company

San Juan, Puerto Rico. December 9, 2024. The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) in collaboration with the Puerto Rico Tourism Company (CTPR) published the Visitor Profile Fiscal Year 2023-2024. This Profile includes the findings of the Traveler Survey conducted from July 2023 to June 2024. This survey was conducted at Luis Muñoz Marín airports in Carolina, Mercedita in Ponce and Rafael Hernández airports in Aguadilla, as well as at the tourist docks of Old San Juan. The term “visitor” includes all non-resident travelers staying in hotels, hostels, rented apartments, homes of family and/or friends, own home, guesthouse, and others.

“The main statistical product of traveler surveys are estimates of visitor expenses, which are included in Puerto Rico's Balance of Payments as income for our economy. In addition, these surveys contribute to the determination of Gross Product and generate statistics on the characteristics of travelers, characteristics that are necessary for decision-making both at the governmental level and by the private sector,” explained Dr. Orville M. Disdier Flores, Executive Director of the Institute.

For his part, the executive director of the CTPR, Carlos Mercado Santiago, highlighted that “the new Traveler Survey questionnaires were specifically designed to respond to the data needs identified by the CTPR, Discover Puerto Rico, the Department of Economic Development and Commerce, the Puerto Rico Planning Board and Aerostar Airport Holdings, LLC. This strategic adaptation allowed us to collect key information for the planning, execution and evaluation of short and long-term promotion strategies, in addition to meeting the main objectives of economic statistics.”

The Visitor Profile provides information about visitors regarding their place of origin, gender, age, education, occupation, income level, the purpose of their trip, type of accommodation, places visited, average number of days spent, activities carried out, the quality of the services offered at airports, their satisfaction with their visit and their expenses in various categories. It should be noted that several reported analyses were broken down between Puerto Rican visitors and other types of visitors, allowing for certain contrasts. Among the most significant findings from this study are the following:

  • 93% of visitors come from other jurisdictions in the United States.
  • 63% of the people who visit us are Puerto Ricans who reside in other jurisdictions.
  • 59% of the visitors were women.
  • Puerto Rican women between 40 and 59 years of age represent Puerto Rico's most frequent visitor profile.
  • The majority of visitors are highly educated, with 53% having a baccalaureate or higher degree.
  • More than 50% of Puerto Rican visitors reported annual family incomes greater than $60,000 while most other visitors reported annual family incomes of $80,000 or more.
  • The majority of Puerto Rican visitors visit us for vacations or to visit family and friends (36% and 32%, respectively).
  • 47% of visitors stayed in the private residences of friends or family, followed by hotels (22%) and short-term rentals (20%).
  • The main municipalities where non-Puerto Rican visitors stayed were San Juan, Carolina and Rio Grande. Puerto Rican visitors tended to disperse more across other regions outside the metropolitan area.
  • The Metro region was the most visited in general, by 66% of visitors. This region is particularly popular with non-Puerto Rican visitors (76%).
  • The regions of Porta del Sol, known for its beach tourism, and Porta Cordillera, famous for its mountainous landscapes, showed relatively low visitor values at 28% and 15%, respectively. 20% of the total number of visitors reported visiting Porta Caribe, famous for its culture and history.
  • A low percentage of visitors (17%) participate in ecotourism activities.
  • 95% of visitors were “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with their visit and 96% of visitors stated that they are “very likely” or “likely” to return to Puerto Rico.
  • The total expenditure of air visitors reached $2,546 million, of which 52% were Puerto Rican visitors. Including cruise ship hikers in transit, total spending is close to $2.6 billion, representing approximately 3% of Puerto Rico's Gross Product.

To access the Visitor Profile Fiscal Year 2023-2024, you can visit Visitor profile.

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access.

For more information you can visit the website: www.estadisticas.pr or write to preguntas@estadisticas.pr. They can also follow social networks through Facebook (@estadisticas .pr), X (@EstadisticasPR), LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) and Instagram (@institutodeestadisticas) accounts.

Authorized by the Office of the Electoral Comptroller OCE-SA-2024- 13775

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Statistics Institute employees provide support in the 2017 Homeless Count

Statistics Institute employees provide support in the 2017 Homeless Count

Authorized statements by the Executive Director of the Institute of Statistics on statements made by the Executive Director of Financial Advisory and Agency of the Government of Puerto Rico.

PRESS RELEASE
DR. MARIO MARAZZI‐SANTIAGO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

March 28, 2018

AUTHORIZED STATEMENTS BY THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS ON STATEMENTS MADE BY THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE FINANCIAL ADVISORY AUTHORITY AND FISCAL AGENCY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF PUERTO RICO

Faced with the enormous fiscal and credibility challenges facing our Government, we renew our invitation to the Executive Director of AAFAF to demonstrate his real commitment to financial transparency, providing us with access to the “general ledger” of AAFAF and all the other subsidiaries it manages, so that we can incorporate them into the Puerto Rico Financial Transparency System, managed by the Institute: Financial Transparency. pr.

The “general ledger” is the accounting database that records every expense or revenue transaction of an organization. It contains information about who receives each payment, when they receive it, how much they received it and what they received it for.

Since 2016, the Institute has invited all public entities to join the System. So far, AAFAF has shown no interest in participating in the System, despite the fact that this server personally presented the System to AAFAF and invited not only AAFAF to join, but AAFAF to order the entire Government to join.

Globally, more and more countries, states and cities are using open data portals, such as the Financial Transparency System, to report to their citizens on how every penny of public funds is spent. In addition, as soon as the information is recorded in the System, great cost and efficiency are achieved in the management of public financial information.

All the information on the Institute's operating expenses is available there, in an open format that allows data to be downloaded, analyzed and visualized.

For example, one of the lines requested by AAFAF is the expenditure on the employer's contribution to the health insurance of the Institute's employees. If he spent about five minutes, the Director could see that the Institute has spent a large total of $41,844 on health insurance for its employees so far so far in fiscal year 2018:
Fiscal 2018: http://www.transparenciafinanciera.pr/

For more information on the Institute's finances, you can view all of the Institute's audited financial statements, together with the auditing reports that the Office of the Comptroller has carried out on the Institute's finances, at: Mission-and-Vision.

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Press Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes (787) 688-0401

They add data on adult health conditions to the interactive map on school and community profiles

They add data on adult health conditions to the interactive map on school and community profiles

Based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)” annual survey

August 2, 2022: The executive director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, Dr. Orville M. Disdier, announced that a new layer has been added to the interactive map on school and community profiles, known as the “School Community Profile: The Interactive Map”. This time, the new layer deals with aspects of adult health. This new layer presents statistics on several health conditions in the adult population (18 years and older), such as diabetes, asthma, heart disease, arthritis, and cancer, among others. The data are based on information collected by the annual “Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)” survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with the Puerto Rico Department of Health. This particular layer is entitled “Behavioral Risk Surveillance System 2020 (CDC)” and must be activated using the “layers” menu. The data correspond to the calendar year 2020 and the statistics are available at the regional level, segregated into the following six (6) regions: Arecibo, Bayamón, Caguas, Mayagüez, Metro-Fajardo and Ponce.

“These data allow us to geo-correlate the regional prevalence of health characteristics of adult residents of those regions, with the rest of the diverse characteristics of schools, students and the communities that are located within them,” explained Dr. Disdier.

Some aspects that this new layer allows us to observe are, for example, that the prevalence of diabetes for 2020 was 19.3% for the Arecibo region, while for the Metro-Fajardo region it was 13%. On the other hand, for the Arecibo region, the prevalence of kidney disease was 3.3%, and for the Caguas region it was 2.6%. “The contrasts between the health aspects of the regions with the rest of the characteristics of the students, and their communities in those regions, could help improve health promotion and health risk prevention strategies within each community,” emphasized Dr. Disdier.

The School Community Profile: The Interactive Map”, with this new layer and all the others, resides on the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics website and can be accessed at any time by interested parties at the following e-mail address: School community profile.

For technical questions about this tool, you can send an email to: preguntas@estadisticas.pr.

#estadisticaspr

About the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

To learn more about the Institute of Statistics, you can access the website: www.estadisticas.pr.gov. On social media through Facebook accounts (@statistics.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR), Instagram (@institutodeestadisticas) and LinkedIn (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics).