Tourism in Puerto Rico attracts millions of visitors each year, with more than 5.1 million passengers arriving at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in 2022, a 6.5% increase from 2021, the main point of arrival into the island of Puerto Rico. With a $8.9 billion revenue in 2022 (a 39% increase over the previous high in 2019), tourism has been a very important source of revenue for Puerto Rico for a number of decades given its favorable warm climate, beach destinations and its diversity of natural wonders, cultural and historical sites, festivals, concerts and sporting events. As Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States, U.S. citizens do not need a passport to enter Puerto Rico, and the ease of travel attracts many tourists from the mainland U.S. each year.
In 2017, Hurricane Maria caused severe damage to the island and its infrastructure. The damage was estimated at $100 billion. An April 2019 report indicated that by that time, only a few hotels were still closed, that life for tourists in and around the capital had, for the most part, returned to normal. By October 2019, nearly all of the popular amenities for tourists, in the major destinations such as San Juan, Ponce and Arecibo, were in operation on the island and tourism was rebounding. This was important for the economy, since tourism provides up 10% of Puerto Rico's GDP, according to Discover Puerto Rico. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, however, greatly affected this gradual recovery, and it was not until 2022 that tourism numbers would demonstrate a concrete recovery of the tourism industry in the island.
History The inauguration of the Condado Vanderbilt Hotel on 16 October 1919 marked the beginning of upscale tourism in Puerto Rico.Flores, Ronald. "New Hotels on the Horizon". (February/March 2009) ¡Qué Pasa!. Puerto Rico Tourism Company. Retrieved 19 March 2013. According to Dennis Merrill, author of Negotiating Cold War Paradise: U.S. Tourism, Economic Planning, and Cultural Modernity in Twentieth-Century Puerto Rico, the tourism industry in the Caribbean is viewed by its critics as causing host countries to practice economic subservience to the visitors of the islands. He highlights the U.S. attempt in the 1930s to make Puerto Rico an island destination for tourists to bring in a new source of revenue to the U.S. and help lift it out of economic depression. Travel guides and advertisements used at the time suggested that the people of Puerto Rico lived in poverty and wanted a chance to serve travelers from the United States.
The creation of the Caribe Hilton Hotel in San Juan in 1949 represented a partnership between the Puerto Rican government and private U.S businesses. American business viewed the creation of the hotel as a symbol of their power to create material progress. A majority of Puerto Rican citizens did not approve of the decision to build the hotel as they believed that the public funds would have better suited the island inhabitants if they were invested in improving education and social welfare. San Juan's fire chief of the time disapproved the local government's decision to degrade itself by buying tourists. Articles published by El Mundo in 1952 described American tourists as selfish people who did not care about the island and ones who will in the future convince the Puerto Rican people to serve them. In addition to beach holidays, gambling and casinos were some of the first tourist activities that were developed in the island. The gambling sector is also an important contributor to the tourism sector (employing 3,409 people, 2017 ), and it encompasses 20 casinos all attached to hotels and resorts acting as tourist destinations. It is mandatory, according to Puerto Rican law, that casinos must be attached to hotels and resorts, and must be located within "zones of historic or touristic interest" (Spanish: zonas históricas, antiguas o de interés turístico). Today there is a significant and growing Chinese presence in the Puerto Rico gambling sector, so far 10% of the casinos are owned by Chinese individuals or companies, and more are partially owned. The number of Chinese tourists is also on the rise: in 2019, contribution of travel and tourism to GDP (% of GDP) for Puerto Rico was 6.9%. However, the exact contribution of the gambling sector within the tourism and travel sector is not measured separately by the government.
In the 1950s, the focus of tourism shifted to cultural and natural heritage travel with the federal designation of the San Juan National Historic Site and the historic district of Old San Juan being restored by the Puerto Rican government in order to attract visitors interested in the colonial history of the island. The designation of La Fortaleza and San Juan National Historic Site in 1983 as the eleventh World Heritage Site under U.S. jurisdiction further helped cement San Juan as a national and international tourist destination. Ecotourism later grew with the establishment of visitor infrastructure in El Yunque National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the National Forest Service system, and with the development of natural heritage tourist destinations in the form of state forests, recreational areas and parques nacionales, the Puerto Rican equivalent of state parks, between the 1950s and 1980s. Other tourist activities such as fishing also became popular in the second half of the 20th century with Puerto Rico being considered one of the best places in the world to catch Atlantic tarpon.
The tourism industry experienced moderate levels of growth in 2014, driven primarily by the introduction of new cruise lines and airfare activity and the development of new hotels on the island. In 2016, Puerto Rico was featured as a popular destination for business meetings, incentives, conferencing, and exhibitions, due to its modern convention center and district overlooking the Port of San Juan. Between 2017 and 2020, however, the tourism industry in Puerto Rico was greatly affected by events such as Hurricane Maria in 2017, the 2019 and 2020 earthquakes, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Additionally, during the 2019 government shutdown, the San Juan National Historic Site closed its two colonial-era fortresses of Castillo San Felipe del Morro and Castillo San Cristóbal to visitors.
As of 2025, nonstop flights to Puerto Rico are available year-round from domestic airports such as Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Nashville, New York, Newark, Orlando, Philadelphia, Tampa, Washington, D.C., and several international airports, including Bogotá, Cancún, Madrid, Medellín, Montreal, Panama City, San José, and Toronto, as well as regional Caribbean destinations such as Port of Spain, Punta Cana, St. Croix, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, Santiago de los Caballeros, Santo Domingo, and Tortola.
Land Privatization, Ownership, and Impacts Role of corporations
Increasing land privatization in Puerto Rico takes place amid what scholars Yarimar Bonilla and Marisol LeBrón term “aftershocks of disaster,”Bonilla, Yarimar and Marisol LeBrón. 2019. Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm. (p. 6) where the island is mired in neocolonial debt and public infrastructures like airports and hospitals continue to be sold to the highest bidder. The passing of Act 20/22 in 2012 also allowed wealthy elites from the United States to treat Puerto Rico as a tax haven and become “stakeholders.” New arrivals–who do not include those born in Puerto Rico—who spend at least six months in the territory can be exempt from federal, local, capital gains, and passive income taxes until 2035, all of which contributes to the rise of “hyper-segregated elite foreign enclaves around the island.”
As Naomi Klein and Boniila demonstrate in their research, this “infrastructure of disposition and displacement” was deeply rooted even before Hurricane Maria in 2017. Hurricane Maria only worsened the ongoing land privatization, as one resident shared: “It feels like Hurricane Maria placed a ‘For Sale’ sign on the island.” More recently, in 2021, cryptocurrency companies like Pantera Capital and Redwood City Ventures have been moving their offices to Puerto Rico alongside 274 other corporations, LLCs, partnerships, and other entities approved under the Exports Services Act to avoid taxes. Mortgage investors, such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Perella Weinberg Partners, and TPG Capital have increasingly turned to Puerto Rico for cheap foreclosed properties as local residents are forced to leave. There is such significant demand that other companies, such as PRelocate, specialize in helping their clients relocate their businesses to the island.
Land Ownership Shifts and Tourism
The lack of proof of ownership of land and homes in Puerto Rico has served as an obstacle for people whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Maria in 2017 to get repaired. According to the Puerto Rico Builders’ Association, in 2018, 45-55% of homes and commercial buildings have been constructed without building permits or following land use codes. It is estimated that 260,000 homes do not have deeds or titles. Much of these illegally built homes have been cited as examples of “rescuing land.” Many who lack the resources would thereby “rescue land” by building homes in vacant and unused land that is often owned by the state, and not homeowners. In addition, many homes lack historical documentation because of the practice of subdividing generationally owned land. As a result, much of the housing that has been made inhospitable by the Hurricane that devastated the island, cannot be fixed for residents through FEMA funding, leaving many in dire and unsafe conditions, or without proper housing at all.
Meanwhile, in July 2019 the Puerto Rican state planning board put forth new land use codes in an attempt to bring business to the island and alleviate the debt crisis. The plan, which was met with significant resistance, would potentially change areas that were zoned as natural resource areas, agricultural lands, and residential areas to allow new land uses. According to Puerto Rican farmer Carlos Pacheo, land used for agricultural areas allowing new uses, including industry, can negatively affect the growth of local agriculture in Puerto Rico and thus impact food security, which is a growing problem for Puerto Rico as the island has been relying on expensive importation of food. It is estimated that 99,000 cuerdas of land could lose protected status, making land once deemed as natural resources or residential areas, could fall into the ownership of corporations, especially tourist corporations.