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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72,000 net passengers returned on domestic flights in the first 4 months of the year

The data confirms the return of people after the passage of Hurricane Maria

San Juan, PR, July 13, 2017 — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) today released updated data on the movement of air passengers on domestic flights up to the month of April 2018, as reported by airlines to U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). Here's a summary of the most striking results:

• In the last 4 months of last year (September to December 2017), during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, about -200,000 net passengers departed on domestic flights.

• In contrast, in the first 4 months of the year (January to April 2018), about 72,000 people arrived in Puerto Rico in net terms on domestic flights.

• This represents a notable change from previous years. For example, for the same period last year (January to April 2017), instead of experiencing a net passenger arrival, almost -40,000 net air passengers had departed.

• In the first 10 months of fiscal year 2017-18, there was a net movement of air passengers on domestic flights of almost -155 thousand air passengers. In the last 3 calendar years (2014, 2015 and 2016), the net movement of air passengers on domestic flights was an average departure of -89,000 passengers per year.

“We have been trying to identify a return pattern after Hurricane Maria for some time. Finally, these data confirm that trend. Although the figure does not indicate that a similar number of people have returned among those who left after the Hurricane, the data suggests that this return process has begun. We will have to see how the movement of passengers behaves during this summer to get a more complete picture. But, for now, these data suggest that for fiscal year 2017-18 there will be a net migration of approximately -150 to -170 thousand people. If so, this will represent an increase in the migratory wave that Puerto Rico had been experiencing before the Hurricane, which was around -90,000 people a year before the passage of Hurricane Maria. But, at the same time, it will represent a substantially lower increase than the -250,000 people that had been projected in the last Fiscal Plan,” said Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago, executive director of the Institute.

Data on the net movement of air passengers can be downloaded from: https://indicadores.pr/dataset/vuelos-pasajeros-aereos-y-carga-puerto-rico.

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. The IEPR has in its inventory, accessible through www.estadisticas.pr.gov, over 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through www.data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: www.indicadores.pr.

In addition, as the leading entity of the Puerto Rico SDC, the IEPR manages the SDC portal, where you can find the main statistical reports and publications of the U.S. Census Bureau on Puerto Rico, specifically those that are most in demand, such as annual population estimates; the Puerto Rico Community Survey (Puerto Rico Community Survey) and official statistics on Puerto Rico's 10-year population and housing censuses, among others. The Puerto Rico SDC portal can be accessed through: https://censo.estadisticas.pr/.

For more information you can visit our website: www.estadisticas.pr.gov. In addition, you can follow us on social networks through Facebook (estadisticas.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) accounts.

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

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Donations to non-profit organizations in Puerto Rico increased 136.5% in eight years

Report from the Institute of Statistics and UPR reveals that donations deducted from payroll exceeded $329 million in 2023

The Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics and the Graduate School of Public Administration (EGAP) of the University of Puerto Rico published the new Generosity Report 2015-2023, an analysis that reveals sustained growth in monetary donations reported by taxpayers in Puerto Rico over the past eight years.

The report, based on official data from the Department of Treasury on deductions claimed for donations to non-profit organizations, shows that total monetary donations increased from $139.5 million in 2015 to $329.8 million in 2023, representing a cumulative increase of 136.5%.

The analysis also reveals that, during the period studied, taxpayers in Puerto Rico claimed an average of $231.9 million annually in deductions for donations. The largest annual increase occurred between 2020 and 2021, when deductions grew 19.6%, a behavior that coincides with the period after the pandemic and multiple emergencies that impacted Puerto Rico.

“The report confirms that in Puerto Rico there is a culture of support and solidarity that deserves to be documented and studied in greater depth. This data allow us to begin to measure Puerto Rico's philanthropic behavior, using official and comparable information,” said Dr. Luz Mairym López-Rodríguez, associate professor at EGAP and project manager.

The doctor added that “the preparation of this report represents an opportunity for Puerto Rico to join the discussion on generosity, particularly in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, it will make it possible to promote academic research based on concrete data.” He also expressed his gratitude to Omar Álvarez González, the Institute's statistical project assistant, for his collaboration in the development of the report.

“In many jurisdictions around the world, there are efforts to measure and document the ecosystem of generosity. In Puerto Rico, there is still little statistical information on this topic, so this report represents an important step in generating comparable data and bringing a new dimension to the economic and social analysis of Puerto Rico,” said Dr. Orville M. Disdier Flores, executive director of the Institute of Statistics.

Disdier also mentioned that “non-profit organizations and philanthropy are an important part of the social and economic fabric of Puerto Rico, and having official statistics on generosity allows us to better understand how people support community, educational, cultural and health causes, among others. That is why we welcomed the collaboration proposed by Dr. Luz Mairym López-Rodríguez to develop this analysis.”

The report also includes interactive graphics and maps that allow us to visualize trends and compare the behavior of deductions for donations over time. Although the total amount of donations increased, the study points out that the number of taxpayers who claimed deductions for donations showed a reduction during the period analyzed, suggesting that the average contributions claimed are higher than a decade ago.

The report is available at: Generosity Report 2015-2023.

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