Since the mid-1980s the tourism sector has become one of the country's most important sources of foreign exchange, and more popular tourist destinations. The country is famous for its favorable location in the Caribbean, tropical climate, beaches, and the restored Spanish colonial architecture. Many foreign investors have and continue to be encouraged to invest here to build and expand resorts and airports around the coasts. During this same period, tourism displaced sugar as the main source of the country's earnings, and by 1997 it was generating more than half of the country's total foreign exchange. In 2019 it generated one-third of the total foreign exchange for the country.