Tourist arrivals in Curacao grew by 32 percent in 2010 over 2009, said officials at the Curacao Tourist Board (CTB). U.S. arrivals grew by 35 percent, while arrivals from Canada grew by 17 percent between 2009 and 2010. Curacao officials linked the increase to Continental Airlines’ launching twice-weekly nonstop service from Newark Liberty International Airport to Curacao International Airport in December 2010.

The upcoming expansion of tourism facilities in Jamaica’s northwest will create 3,000 jobs and help attract more visitors, the government said. The Associated Press reports that the Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett says the expansion of the Grand Palladium Jamaica Resort & Spa in the town of Lucea will add 900 new suites and an undetermined number of golf courses.

The Aruba Tourism Authority has announced that tourism to the island is off to a strong start in 2011, with a 5.2 percent increase in visitors this January compared to the same period in 2010, allowing the island to break their January 2008 record (71,262 stay-over visitors) as they welcomed 74,965 visitors this year.

The Secretary-General of the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Taleb Rifai, and the President of the Banesto Foundation, Antonio Basagoiti, have presented the cooperation agreement signed by the two organizations at UNWTO headquarters in Madrid.

The municipalities of Puerto Rico's west coast are promoting an air link with Madrid and Barcelona to attract tourists, a move that would have an annual economic impact on the area of $35 million. The initiative is being spearheaded by IDEO, a tourism promotion agency in western Puerto Rico whose members include hotels and city halls who want to spur the region's economic development.

In 2010, there were 55.7 million overnight tourists to China, up 9.4 percent on the previous year, while foreign exchange generated from tourism totaled $45.8 billion. Meanwhile, Chinese tourists made a total of 57.4 million outbound trips in 2010, up 20.4 percent over 2009.