Should you buy near Santa Marta airport now?

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Should you buy near Santa Marta airport now?

Yes, buying near Santa Marta airport can make sense today, but only in the parts of the southern coastal corridor that would still be attractive without the airport story.

Simón Bolívar airport is becoming more important, the terminal expansion is under construction, and the south of Santa Marta keeps attracting tourism-oriented development. Those are real tailwinds. The mistake would be treating every apartment close to the runway as an airport-growth investment. Bello Horizonte, Pozos Colorados, Aeromar and Don Jaca can sit only a few kilometres apart while offering very different combinations of beach access, noise, services, rental demand and resale liquidity.

The question we really need to answer is whether the airport makes an already-good property better. In the strongest cases, it does.

Is Santa Marta airport actually getting busier?

Yes. Santa Marta’s Simón Bolívar airport is operating at a much higher level than a few years ago, even though passenger growth has cooled lately.

The airport handled about 3.79 million passengers in 2025, its highest annual total. That was roughly 4.7% above 2024 and about 34% above the depressed 2023 level.

The longer sequence is useful because it stops us from mistaking one strong year for a straight-line boom. Passenger traffic jumped during the post-pandemic rebound, fell sharply in 2023, recovered in 2024 and reached a new high in 2025.

More recently, Pro Santa Marta Vital’s analysis of Aerocivil data showed passenger traffic slipping 2.1% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier. Flight frequency also fell 2.4%, equivalent to around 150 fewer flights.

So Santa Marta airport is clearly large enough to matter for real estate, but buyers should stop assuming traffic will set a fresh record every single year.

Is the Santa Marta airport expansion really happening?

Yes. The Santa Marta airport terminal expansion is already under construction, while the much more ambitious runway extension remains a future project.

The distinction is important for property buyers.

ANI started the terminal works in late 2025 after approving roughly COP 75.3 billion of investment. The program adds around 3,740 square metres, expands domestic and international boarding areas, changes the aircraft platform and improves passenger facilities.

According to the Ministry of Transport’s latest detailed progress update, construction had reached about 14%. The finished terminal is designed to handle close to 5.8 million passengers a year, compared with roughly 3.6 million before the expansion.

That is around 60% more processing capacity.

The runway project could have a bigger effect on Santa Marta’s international connectivity. The government is planning an extension toward about 2.04 kilometres, with an estimated investment of COP 330 billion. Environmental-impact studies have funding, but the engineering is complicated because part of the work interacts with the marine environment.

For now, we would price the terminal expansion into the Santa Marta airport investment story. We would treat the runway as additional upside rather than something a property purchase depends on.

Will a bigger Santa Marta airport actually raise nearby property prices?

A bigger Santa Marta airport should help the best properties in the south, but airport proximity by itself is a weak reason to pay more.

The strongest effect comes from accessibility. Bello Horizonte, Pozos Colorados and parts of Don Jaca already attract tourists, second-home owners and investors. A visitor can land at Simón Bolívar and reach some southern beach developments within minutes.

That is genuinely useful.

For a family coming from Bogotá several times a year, or an international owner connecting through Panama, a short transfer makes a beach apartment easier to use. The value becomes stronger when the same property also offers a good beach, restaurants, supermarkets, hotel infrastructure and a view.

An inland apartment beside the airport gets far less from that equation. It may have excellent terminal access while offering little that tourists or second-home buyers actually travel to Santa Marta for.

We see the airport as an amplifier. It makes a strong coastal location more convenient.

Is Santa Marta becoming much easier to reach internationally?

Santa Marta is becoming more international, but the city still depends overwhelmingly on domestic travel.

ProColombia counted 69,222 international visitors to Santa Marta in 2025, up 18.8% in one year. The United States was the largest source market with 14,229 visitors, while arrivals from Ecuador rose 41.1%, Chile 21.3%, Peru 65.3%, Argentina 44.8% and Mexico 22.3%.

That is one of the better recent signals for higher-end tourism property because foreign visitors are growing considerably faster than the airport’s total passenger count.

Copa’s Santa Marta–Panama City route also gives the city access to a much wider international network through Tocumen. Still, Bogotá, Medellín and Cali remain far more important to Santa Marta’s air market.

We would be careful with developers pitching the area as Colombia’s next major international beach gateway. Santa Marta is moving in that direction, but it has a long way to go before its international connectivity resembles Cartagena’s.

The current opportunity is more grounded: a domestic tourism market with improving foreign demand and the possibility of better international access later.

Does being five minutes from Santa Marta airport really help an Airbnb?

Yes. Being close to Santa Marta airport helps an Airbnb when guests are already choosing the area for the beach, resort or neighborhood.

Airport distance ranks behind location quality.

Bello Horizonte shows how the combination works. Guests can reach the beach, Zazué shopping center, restaurants, large hotels and the airport without spending much time crossing Santa Marta. A short airport transfer becomes another reason the stay feels easy.

The same advantage is weaker for a unit whose main selling point is simply “three minutes from the airport.”

People generally travel to Santa Marta for the Caribbean coast, Tayrona, Minca, the Sierra Nevada and the city’s tourism areas. Very few leisure visitors care about sleeping as close to the terminal as possible.

For an Airbnb investor, we would rank beach quality, view, building amenities, unit quality and rental rules ahead of airport distance. Once those boxes are checked, proximity to Simón Bolívar becomes a useful differentiator.

Are Bello Horizonte and Don Jaca becoming Santa Marta’s next major property zone?

Yes. Santa Marta’s southern corridor is clearly absorbing a large share of the city’s new tourism and second-home development.

Camacol Magdalena’s current project catalogue still contains multiple developments marketed around resort living and tourist rentals. Marena, Porto Sabbia, Terrabonga and other projects show how heavily developers are leaning into the same southern-coast thesis.

Terrabonga is a good example of the scale involved. The project near Bello Horizonte and Pozos Colorados was launched with 535 apartments, and its current marketing explicitly promotes both personal use and short-term rental. Its first stage is approaching delivery while a second stage is already in presale.

Bello Horizonte is much further along. Zazué, established hotels, mature condominiums and a recognizable premium beach identity already exist.

Don Jaca carries more development risk because much of its higher-end resort ecosystem is newer. That also leaves more room for the area to change.

The distinction is simple for us: Bello Horizonte is easier to underwrite from what already exists, while Don Jaca asks the buyer to believe more strongly in what comes next.

Are properties near Santa Marta airport still cheap?

No. The better coastal areas near Santa Marta airport have already been discovered by buyers and developers.

Current Camacol listings give a useful sense of the entry tickets. Marena is marketed from roughly COP 328 million, Porto Sabbia from COP 418 million and Terrabonga from around COP 299 million, with unit sizes varying considerably.

Terrabonga’s own current sales material places entry pricing higher for its latest available inventory, from roughly COP 360 million, with apartments between about 35 and 73 square metres.

That does not tell us the exact market value of every unit, because developer prices, resale asking prices and completed transactions are different things. It does tell us something important: this is no longer an overlooked strip of coast where investors are arriving before construction starts.

The airport expansion, beach development and tourism story are already being sold.

A buyer can still find value, especially when comparing older resales with new-build launch prices, but we would demand a real reason for paying a premium. “Close to the airport” is too easy for every developer in the corridor to put in a brochure.

Is Santa Marta’s Airbnb market getting overcrowded?

Santa Marta’s Airbnb market is still crowded, but the latest numbers are considerably healthier than they looked a year ago.

AirDNA’s latest full-month data tracks 6,999 active short-term-rental listings across Santa Marta. That remains a huge pool of competing accommodation, especially for owners selling similar one-bedroom resort apartments.

But active listings have fallen 34.5% year over year.

At the same time, average occupancy has climbed 21.1% to about 46%, RevPAR has increased 13.3% to roughly US$33, and average annual revenue per active listing has risen sharply to around US$10,900. The weaker number is the average daily rate, which fell 16.8% to about US$71.

That combination is more interesting than a simple oversupply story. Fewer active listings are currently sharing stronger booking demand, but owners are accepting lower nightly prices.

Almost half of active listings are one-bedroom properties, according to AirDNA. That is exactly where a buyer of another small resort apartment should be cautious.

Santa Marta can support good short-term rentals today. The market is also telling us that generic inventory has plenty of substitutes.

So is Santa Marta still building too many tourist apartments?

Possibly. Santa Marta is still adding a lot of tourism-oriented housing, and the strongest warning now comes from the gap between new development and formal accommodation performance.

Asotelca Magdalena estimated that more than 9,000 new tourist-housing units could be incorporated between 2024 and 2026. Its sample of formal hotels also showed weighted Easter occupancy falling from about 74% in 2024 to 61% in 2025 and roughly 57% in 2026.

Real average room rates in that sample fell as well, from about COP 283,000 in 2024 to COP 248,000 in 2026 after adjusting for inflation.

That is hard evidence that growing visitor numbers do not automatically translate into stronger economics for every accommodation provider.

At the same time, AirDNA’s latest data shows active short-term-rental supply shrinking sharply and occupancy improving. We therefore would not call Santa Marta a simple oversupply market today.

The more precise conclusion is that development is still aggressive while accommodation demand is moving between hotels, informal rentals and professionally operated apartments. The winners can do well. Average properties face a much harder fight.

What kind of apartment near Santa Marta airport should you actually buy?

We would currently favor a property with beach scarcity, a strong view and more than one type of future buyer.

A genuine beachfront position is difficult to reproduce. The same is true for an unobstructed sea view, unusually good beach access or a well-run established building with a strong reputation.

Those characteristics give the owner several possible exits. A family may buy the apartment as a second home. A longer-stay tenant may rent it. A tourist may book it for a week. Another investor may value the existing rental record.

Small studios are trickier.

They can generate efficient nightly revenue, but nearly half of Santa Marta’s active short-term-rental stock is already one-bedroom accommodation. New developments keep adding compact investor units with pools, coworking, gyms and similar amenity packages.

A 30-square-metre apartment therefore needs something special or a very good purchase price.

For a five-to-ten-year hold, we generally like the resilience of a well-designed one- or two-bedroom coastal unit that a normal household could genuinely live in.

Could airport noise ruin the investment near Simón Bolívar?

Yes. Aircraft noise is one of the clearest reasons to inspect the exact apartment rather than buying a neighborhood name.

The airport’s master-plan noise modelling identified Bello Sol, Las Tunas and Aeromar within the current affected area. Under its longer-term airport scenario, the modeled zone expands to include Cristo Rey and Bello Horizonte as well.

That does not mean every apartment in those neighborhoods is noisy.

Flight path, unit orientation, altitude, floor level, façade quality and glazing can completely change the experience. A sea-facing apartment can feel very different from another unit in the same building facing airport operations.

The future runway project also makes historical noise patterns a weaker guide to long-term exposure.

We would visit a prospective unit during active flight periods, stand on the balcony with the doors open and then repeat the test indoors. This is one of those checks where five minutes inside the actual apartment tells us more than several pages of sales material.

Are water and flooding still serious risks near Santa Marta airport?

Yes. Water reliability remains a current weakness in Santa Marta’s southern corridor, and certain low-lying areas also deserve much closer drainage checks.

There has been real improvement. ESSMAR installed a new 200-horsepower pump at the Irotama station that increased distribution capacity from about 140 to 178 litres per second for a corridor serving more than 8,000 users. Work at the El Roble treatment plant has also raised its operating flow from around 370 to 450 litres per second.

Yet interruptions keep happening.

ESSMAR has repeatedly reported reduced pressure or temporary service problems affecting Bello Horizonte, Pozos Colorados, Aeromar and the airport sector this year. Another southern-corridor interruption was reported just recently after an electrical failure at a pumping station.

The system is improving without having become fully reliable.

The proposed desalination plants could eventually change Santa Marta’s water outlook, but the project has gone through legal, administrative and procurement complications. Recent discussions between the city and the national housing ministry suggest the plan may move toward a new contracting stage. We would still avoid assuming desalination has solved the problem before the plants exist and operate.

Building-level due diligence is therefore crucial. We want to know the capacity of the water tanks, whether tanker trucks have been needed, where pumps and electrical systems sit, and how the building performed during peak tourist occupancy.

For Aeromar and other lower areas, we would add one more question: what happened to the garage, entrances and access roads during the worst recent rainfall?

Is Bello Horizonte safer than Don Jaca for an investment?

Yes. Bello Horizonte is currently the safer property investment, while the right Don Jaca project can offer more upside.

Bello Horizonte already has a functioning ecosystem. Buyers can see the hotels, established condominiums, Zazué, restaurants, beach demand and transport connections today.

That reduces the amount of imagination required.

Don Jaca is earlier in its transformation. New resort developments can improve the area considerably, and buying before the neighborhood fully matures can produce better appreciation. But construction around you, thinner retail infrastructure and heavier dependence on future development all add uncertainty.

Aeromar sits somewhere else on the spectrum. Airport access is exceptional and some developments offer a compelling beach/resort experience, but aircraft exposure and drainage make the exact building unusually important.

Pozos Colorados remains one of our favorite alternatives because it combines the broader southern-corridor growth story with a more established premium beach market.

The key price rule is simple: we would not pay Bello Horizonte money for an ordinary Don Jaca apartment unless the unit, building or beachfront position clearly gives us something better.

What would make us reject a property near Santa Marta airport?

We would reject a Santa Marta airport-area property quickly if its numbers only work after assuming higher occupancy, future international routes and strong appreciation at the same time.

The same goes for significant aircraft noise without a price discount, unclear permission for tourist rentals, weak condominium finances, high monthly administration charges, poor water backup or a building with recurring drainage problems.

Rental rules deserve particular attention. Colombian tourist accommodation generally needs Registro Nacional de Turismo compliance, and short-term stays in a propiedad horizontal depend on what the building’s registered rules permit.

A salesperson saying “Airbnb is allowed” does not settle that.

We would also inspect how many near-identical units exist inside the project. If hundreds of owners have essentially the same studio, view and furniture package, they can end up competing against one another inside a single building whenever demand softens.

A strong apartment near Simón Bolívar should have reasons to own it that survive a mediocre tourism year.

So, should you buy near Santa Marta airport now?

Yes, selectively. We would buy a good coastal property that benefits from Santa Marta airport rather than buying an ordinary property simply because the airport is close.

The case for Santa Marta’s south is stronger today than it was several years ago. Simón Bolívar handled a record 3.79 million passengers in 2025. Its COP 75.3 billion terminal expansion is under construction. Capacity is being pushed toward 5.8 million passengers. International visitor arrivals rose 18.8% last year. New projects keep filling the corridor from Pozos Colorados and Bello Horizonte toward Don Jaca.

The rental picture has improved lately too. AirDNA now shows active short-term-rental supply down 34.5% year over year, occupancy up 21.1% and RevPAR up 13.3%. As seen above, however, nightly rates have fallen and almost half of active rentals are one-bedroom properties. Competition has become healthier without becoming easy.

The risks are equally concrete. Water interruptions still affect the southern corridor. Noise exposure can vary dramatically from one building to another. Thousands of tourist-oriented units are being developed. The runway expansion could materially improve connectivity later, but buyers would be premature to treat that project as completed infrastructure today.

Our preference is fairly sharp.

Bello Horizonte offers the best balance of established demand, airport access, beach quality and services. Pozos Colorados is another strong choice. Selected beachfront projects in Don Jaca can offer greater appreciation potential if the purchase price compensates for the extra development risk. Aeromar can work very well when the building, orientation, acoustic protection and drainage all check out.

Above all, we want scarcity: real beachfront, a protected sea view, a good layout, solid building finances, reliable water storage and clear rental rules.

If the airport expansion goes well, those properties become easier to reach and more useful.

They do not need the airport expansion to rescue them.

Who is the author of this content?

THE LATINVESTOR

A team specialized in real estate investing in LATAM countries

We are a team of financial experts, legal professionals, developers, and local real estate specialists dedicated to helping people like you avoid mistakes when investing in real estate in a foreign place, particularly in Santa Marta. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can check our presentation page.