It was a festive mood at the Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport in Liberia (LIR) this weekend and Monday as three airlines inaugurated new routes. The air carriers in question are Alaska Airlines, Southwest and Thomson Airways; the latter is from the United Kingdom and the former two from the United States.

According to a news report filed by Variela Novo of daily tabloid Diario Extra, Alaska Airlines and Southwest landed their first trips from the U.S. on Sunday. The Alaska Airlines flight brought 155 passengers to the province of Guanacaste while the Southwest flight brought 127. Both airlines had announced special discounted airfare in anticipation of their inaugural flights in recent months.

A highly expected arrival in Costa Rica at LIR will take place on Monday, when Thomson Airways lands a gorgeous Boeing Dreamliner with a passenger capacity of 291.

Officials from the Costa Rica Board of Tourism (Spanish initials: ICT) were on hand to greet visitors at the airport. Minister Mauricio Ventura, who took the post earlier this year, explained that five airlines have chosen Costa Rica as a destination in 2015.

An ICT administrator commented that the Guanacaste region has attracted about 790K tourists in 2014, and they were quite generous in their expenditures while enjoying Costa Rica. Travelers who land at the Liberia airport tend to be more affluent than those who choose the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) in the province of Alajuela. Tickets to LIR tend to be more expensive, and those passengers spend an average of $800 per day during a weeklong stay in Costa Rica.

For 2016, LIR officials expect that the number of foreign arrivals will climb by 20 percent. International tourism in Costa Rica is expected to increase slightly next year, mostly from visits by North American visitors; European tourists are expected to explore new destinations such as Cuba and Nicaragua.