Caribbean posts record stayover, cruise arrivals
The Caribbean outpaced global tourism growth, with record visitor arrivals for 2019.
A total of 31.5 million stayover guests visited the region, rising 4.4% from 2018.
Cruise traffic was up by 3.4% to 30.2 million, which marked seven years of continued growth.
Neil Walters, acting secretary general of the Caribbean Tourism Organization, said destinations hit by hurricanes Irma and Maria have recovered well.
"Overall, the destinations most impacted by the hurricanes in 2017 saw some of the highest rates of growth," Walters said.
Most of these destinations saw steep double-digit increases in arrivals.
St. Maarten was up a massive 80%, Anguilla grew 74.9%, Dominica 51.7% and Puerto Rico increased by 31.2%.
The US was the top performing source market, registering an increase of 10%, but Canada was ‘sluggish’ in 2019.
It was a similar story for the Europe market.
"The UK was down by 5.6% to approximately 1.3 million visitors. On the other hand, intra-Caribbean travel increased by 7.4% to reach 2 million," Walters added.
The number of South Americans visiting the region plunged by 10.4%, according to the Caribbean Tourism Performance Report.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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