After a slow 2006, tourism growth has bumped back up into the double digits. The Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) announced this week that 1.9 million people visited Costa Rica in 2007, an increase of 11.5% over last year's 1.75 million-plus visitors.

Tourist spending increased even faster. The industry is expected to gross more than $1.9 billion this year, an 18% jump over 2006.

Tourism Minister Carlos Benavidas attributed the visitation increase largely to the greater number of flights arriving to Costa Rica. Some 675,000 more airline seats held passengers headed for Costa Rica, a 22% jump.

Almost a dozen airlines either started service to Costa Rica this year or added new flights.

The healthy increase in the country's tourism industry presents a rebound from last year's light 2.7% growth and a return to the robust double-digit growth of 2005 (15.6%), 2004 (17.3%) and 2003 (11.3%).

The sharp growth in tourism over the last few years has caused the tourism institute to rethink its projections. Planners had previously figured a modest and steady growth of an average of 6.6%. What they've had instead in the last five years is a red-hot 9.06% percent average growth.