Several of the traditionally popular tourist destinations in the region recorded declines in visitor arrivals of more than 10 per cent. Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Martin, the Cayman Islands, Antigua and Barbuda and The Bahamas all recorded between 10 and 15 per cent downturns in visitor arrivals while other destinations including Grenada, Bermuda and St. Vincent and the Grenadines recorded declines in visitor arrivals totalling up to 20 per cent in some instances. According to the CTO report Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands fared the worst in terms of visitor arrivals in the region this year with visitors to those countries dipping by between 40 and 45 per cent this year.
So far this year visitor arrivals to the Caribbean from Europe have been down by more than 8 per cent while arrivals from the United States dipped by more than 6 per cent. For this year, however, visitor arrivals from Canada increased by more than 8 per cent. The report says that Cuba, the Dominican Republic and St. Lucia are the three Caribbean destinations that benefited disproportionately from the increase in visitor arrivals in the region from Canada.
With data available up to July this year for most markets the CTO has reported that fourteen Caribbean destinations have suffered declines exceeding ten per cent with eight of these exceeding fifteen per cent. Europe’s sharp decline among the region’s traditional source markets is attributed to weakening exchange rates, particularly sterling rates and the relatively higher cost of transportation to the region.
The CTO report, however, is less than gloomy about this year’s performance by the regional tourism sector so far, pointing out that the rate of decline “appears to be moderating across the region.” It notes that average performances of 5 per cent in July and 7 per cent in August were significantly better than the double digit declines of May and June.
Data released by the CTO on tourist arrivals in the region up to June this year include preliminary figures which indicate that April was the best month for Guyana up to that time with 13,507 tourists arriving here. While the numbers subsequently dipped to 8,941 in May and jumped to 11,012 in June the figures suggest a general upward trend in arrivals here.
The CTO statistical table on tourist arrivals by main market (based on data available as at September 17,2009) indicate that between January and July this year 45,029 tourists visited Guyana from the United States while 14,060 tourists from Canada came here. During the same period 4,935 European tourists came to Guyana while 17,241 came from other destinations.
The Dominican Republic recorded by far the largest number of visitors among Caribbean destinations between January and June this year with arrivals topping 400,000 in March this year but dipping to just over 331,000 by June.
Widely regarded as the sleeping giant of regional tourism, Cuba received more than 279,000 tourists this year despite continued restrictions on travel to the island by Americans. In line with the regional trend, however, tourist arrivals to Cuba dipped just under 165,000 in June this year. Jamaica, the most popular Caricom destination for North American tourists received more than 600,000 tourists from the United States between January and July this year and 175,365 from Canada. Tourists visiting Jamaica from Europe during the January to June period totalled 132,929.
While there are no official figures for visitor arrivals to Cuba from the United States large numbers of Americans are now known to be visiting the island and regional tourist analysts are already pondering what they believe could be a significant shift in tourist patronage from the United States once the United States market is formally opened to Cuba. Meanwhile both Canadian and Europeans continue to find Cuba a pleasing regional tourist destination. Between January and July this year 659,583 Canadians and 522,411 European tourists visited Cuba.
Among CARICOM member countries Jamaica continued to attract the highest number of tourists to the Caribbean. While figures published by CTO indicate that by June this year Jamaica had upped its visitor arrivals to 168,561 from 148,886 in January the downward trend compared to last year continues to be a source of acute concern to that country’s tourism sector. Complete figures for tourist arrivals up to June this year were not available for some Caricom countries including Trinidad and Tobago and The Bahamas.
The figures produced by the CTO for visitor tourist arrivals in the region up to June this year indicate that among the major tourist destinations in the region Barbados fared among the worst with the 45,455 tourist arrivals on the island in January this year dipping to 34,377 by June.
