Business View Caribbean | September 2022

70 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 9, ISSUE 9 this is always the target. To do this you have to continue with the vision and make sure that it is always up-to-date,” Musschenga says. Despite a prolonged pandemic that could have harmed the prospects of resorts including Papagayo, guest numbers continue to climb to levels that outperform 2019 capacity levels. Slier attributes the resort’s preparedness, loyalty to its staff, as well as resilience of the Curacao tourist sector as key buffers that allowed Papagayo to stay above the pandemic tide. Although Musschenga expected that the beach resort numbers would take two to three years to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, by June of 2021 tourist numbers picked up in Curacao producing higher turn-over numbers for resorts including Papagayo. Slier acknowledges, “This was nice to experience because a lot of people thought it would take a lot longer and this is not what happened. It was within one or two ◆