In an online presentation, Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Acting Secretary General Neil Walters revealed the arrival and spend numbers for the Caribbean and how the region performed compared to the rest of the world. The highlight: “Sparked by robust recovery in the destinations that were affected by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, Caribbean tourism rebounded soundly to post record arrivals in terms of both stayover and cruise in 2019,” Walters said.
Stayover arrivals grew by 4.4 percent to reach 31.5 million—that equates to an increase of 1.3 million visitors over 2018. This outpaced the international rate of growth of 3.8 percent reported by the World Tourism Organization. As you might hope, some of the destinations that were most affected by the 2017 storms were those with the highest rates of growth. Some examples of this, Walters noted, were Sint Maarten, which experienced growth of 80 percent; Anguilla (74.9 percent); the British Virgin Islands (57.3 percent); Dominica (51.7 percent); the U.S. Virgin Islands (38.1 percent); and Puerto Rico (31.2 percent).
Meanwhile, cruise visits increased by 3.4 percent, bringing the total to 30.2 million—the seventh consecutive year of growth. The BVI (nearly 200 percent) and Dominica (roughly 75 percent) were among the destinations that saw the most growth in the cruise sector.
The U.S. was the best-performing among the major stayover markets, registering an increase of 10 percent to reach a record 15.5 million visitors. Canada, one of only two main markets to have sustained growth in each of the last three years, was sluggish in 2019 at 0.4 percent growth. Even worse: the European market dipped by 1.4 percent from 5.9 million in 2018 to 5.8 million (the UK was down by 5.6 percent) and the South American market declined by 10.4 percent.
On the other hand, intra-Caribbean travel increased by 7.4 percent to reach 2 million.
“In conclusion, 2019 was a great one overall for Caribbean tourism, based not only on the record performance by the region, but also for some individual destinations,” Walters said. “These achievements were made despite several challenges, such as global economic and political uncertainty and the impact of climate change leading to extreme weather events in some cases.”
“As we navigate 2020, concerns remain over the global economic, environmental, political and social uncertainty, including the U.S. presidential election, the impact of climate change and extreme weather events and health threats/issues, especially the coronavirus, and how these could influence our performance.”
Other factors will also contribute to potential challenges for the Caribbean, Walters added, including less-than-adequate intra-regional air access and high levels of taxation. “However, destinations are making improvements to their infrastructure and there’s renewed investment regionally in tourism facilities for both air and sea travelers,” he said.
Based on the CTO’s preliminary estimates, tourist arrival levels to the Caribbean are projected to grow between 1.0 percent and 2.0 percent in 2020, with a similar rate of growth expected for the cruise sector.
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