CTO: Caribbean tourism arrivals and spending hit all-time high

CTO Secretary General, Hugh Riley, revealed the statistics yesterday during his presentation of the Caribbean Tourism Performance Report 2016 at the CTO head office in Bridgetown, Barbados.

“Despite political, security and economic uncertainties and challenges in our main source markets, tourist arrivals to the Caribbean increased by 4.2 percent in 2016, better than the 3.9 percent overall internationally.” Riley said it was encouraging to note that the Caribbean “welcomed over one million more visitors last year than in 2015, to reach 29.3 million, continuing our proud record of continuous growth for the seventh straight year.” Visitor expenditure also hit a new high, growing by an estimated 3.5 percent to reach US $35.5 billion.

The United States remained the Caribbean’s primary market with an estimated 14.6 million stay-over arrivals, up 3.5 percent than in 2015.

However, it was Europe that recorded the highest rate of growth among the main source markets, led by strong increases from Germany (8.2 percent) and the United Kingdom (4.1 percent).

“Despite terrorist attacks in some countries, the Brexit referendum in the UK and bumpy economic outcomes across continental Europe, arrivals from that market climbed by 11.4 percent, to reach 5.6 million.

The strong European performance was evident by the healthy increases of between six and 16.8 percent in each month, compared to the corresponding month in 2015,” Riley said.

Intra-Caribbean travel also performed well, recording a 3.6 percent increase — the second straight year of growth — despite costly and fragmented air service.