Caribbean Tourist Arrivals Show Uptick

News Americas, BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Fri. Aug. 29, 2014: More people visited the Caribbean for the first half of this year, compared to last year, Caribbean tourism officials said Thursday.

Just under 14 million long-stay tourists visited the Caribbean between January and June, a 4.3 per cent increase over 2013 the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) research head, Winfield Griffith, announced Thursday night on the CTO’s television program, ‘Destination Caribbean.’

Nearly half or 6.87 million were from the United States of America compared to 6.61 million during the same period in 2013.

For the winter period represented by the first four months of the year, at least five countries reported double digit growth. These destinations continue to power through the current summer showing signs of doing exceptionally well this year.

Griffith also announced that the cruise sector enjoyed an 8 per cent increase in passenger arrivals to reach 13.1 million after the first two quarters of 2014.

The CTO research head stated that just 21 countries in the region were able to breakdown their tourist arrivals by destination in time for the report.  From the most recent figures, however, he said it was clear that more Europeans and Canadians are gravitating to the region, showing increases of 6 and 4.3 percent, respectively.

“There is enough evidence to suggest that there is growing economic confidence in the region’s biggest neighbor and this is releasing much pent-up travel demand caused by a long recessionary period,” Griffith commented.