The Directorate of the Galapagos National Park reported that visitor numbers to the Galapagos Islands rose 14 percent in 2018 compared with 2017. Tourism to the islands has been growing steadily, averaging roughly 6 percent year over year. In 2018 nearly 300,000 travelers visited this renowned destination, celebrated for its unique wildlife and natural landscapes.
Approximately one-third of those visitors were domestic travelers from mainland Ecuador. Americans represented the next largest segment, accounting for nearly another third of all arrivals to the islands.
In 2018 the Galapagos Islands marked the 40th anniversary of their designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site, a status granted in 1978 in recognition of the archipelago’s remarkable flora and fauna.
Scientific and conservation work on the islands continues to yield important discoveries. Park rangers recently identified a tortoise population on Fernandina Island that was once considered extinct more than a century ago. In addition, researchers located a new breeding area for scalloped hammerhead sharks along the coast of Santa Cruz Island. Scalloped hammerheads are listed as endangered, with global populations having fallen by more than 90 percent due to slow growth, low reproductive rates and historic overfishing.