Tourism bounce back better than forecast
(CNS): The number of tourists visiting the Cayman Islands had exceeded the ministry’s predictions as of the end of September by more than 13% officials from the department of tourism have revealed. The destination is closing in on the record breaking arrival figures of 2019 as guest numbers have shown steady growth this year.
Between January and September there was a105% increase in total visitors compared with 2022.
More than 323,000 overnight guests and some well over 930,000 cruise passengers visited during the nine month period up to 30 September which was more than 83.6% of 2019’s visitation numbers surpassing the target for this year of 70% of 2019’s figures.
2019 remains the yardstick as the year before the pandemic decimated tourism around the world. And according to the statistics this year started well when compared against it as in January the numbers were at 89% of the 2019 arrivals and September, one of the quietest months of the year they reached 88% of that year’s numbers.
With the destination having exceeded its visitation goal of 70% of 2019’s record numbers in the first three quarters of the year, Kenneth Bryan, Minister of Tourism and Transport is confident Cayman is on track to full tourism recovery by the end of the year.
“Last year, we predicted that 2023 would be a momentous year for tourism, and this year has exceeded our expectations,” said Bryan, “Going into our traditional high season our accommodations, restaurant and retail partners are fully primed to welcome guests, and we look forward to stellar end of year visitation numbers. From a cruise perspective, we look forward to seeing a continued increase in the number of ships calling into Grand Cayman as we work with our local partners to deliver an authentic and memorable destination experience for cruise visitors.”
While air arrivals and ship calls are still not at 2019 levels visitors are back to pre-pandemic length of stay average of six nights on island as was the case in 2019. Inflation has also assisted with tourism revenue as the average daily rate of hotel rooms this year have increase by more than 30% on the 2022 rates. The total room stock has also grown. There are now 7,624 rooms available torepresenting 10,410 beds.
Officials said the recovery has been down to the strategic investment and initiatives deployed by the tourism department from using conferences to showcase the destination to culinary promotional events in various target markets from Canada to the UK.
Rosa Harris, the Director of Tourism said the department was pleased with the nine month visitor numbers and they would continue to work on increasing airlift.
“As we move into our traditional high season and close out the year, we will see an increase in seat capacity from North America as seasonal routes come online from the United States, West Jet and Air Canada increase their frequency from Toronto, and Cayman Airways starts twice-weekly service to Los Angeles,” she said. “We will continue to engage in strategic discussions with our airline partners to ensure increased airlift to the destination. Our goal is to maintain consistent performance throughout 2023, and we are confident that we will continue to reach or exceed our visitation target for the last quarter of the year,” Harris added.
The United States continues to be the largest source market for visitors with 270,187 arrivals out of the total an 83.6% increase from 2022 and on par with 2019’s 84.5%. Even though there were 1,060 fewer inbound flights than in 2019, there was an increased airlift of 2,339 more flights arriving here from the United States compared to 2022.
Meanwhile, visitors from Canada were down just 6% from 2019 and up 87% on 2022 indicating a strong recovery for this market when compared to the United States and UK in line with Canada’s projected post COVID-19 economic recovery.
See the CIDOT statistics on the website here.
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Category: Local News, Tourism
I see the streets of George Town crammed with hordes of America’s lowest end socio economic citizens . Is that the ‘bounce’ Kenneth is trying to sell us.?
Ah, you must be speak of the cruise ship cattle herds that graze and litter on SMB.
Cayman kind.
You forget the ugly imported expats that continually insult Caymanians yet won’t simply just go home to their native lands.
People are staying longer because they’re stuck in traffic jams and cannot leave!
I was thinking about this the other day. Would love to hear how many of those tourists leave satisfied and also how many miss their flights due to the horrific traffic we endure daily.
Thank stayover tourists that rent cars and don’t know how to drive safely on our roads while increasing the number of vehicles on the road.
Good thing cruise ship passengers don’t rent vehicles, cause congestion and don’t crowd our beaches at all hours on all days.
If DOT took its role seriously, we would have full-time managers whose sole responsibility was the collection, and interpretation of valuable exit survey data, and then auditing and streamlining visitor experience to optimise future satisfaction. That doesn’t mean building a port necessarily. It means finishing and cleaning up the airport connector, building a sidewalk on the street-lit eastern side of West Bay Road, and delivering a continuous, safe bike/scooter lanes to and from, north-south and east-west. It means visible police on patrol along the heart of the hotel tourism zone (where violent attacks, home invasions, and targeted assassinations have occurred in the last 12 months). It means fixing all of the eye-sores, and making things look nice to a certain standard. It means delivering interesting destination attractions for our target audience. We are struggling to sell 1990’s 5 star luxury product that melts away to 2 stars or less in contemporary comps, just steps from the property boundaries. The lens needs to expand to integrate the entire community, including shaded green spaces, urban infrastructure planning, modern smartphone-integrated transport solutions, and touchless payments without wheels of thermal paper spinning.
LOL, collect and analyze data? Just drive by the old Margaritaville on WB road and it is now an overgrown jungle. Great look for a high end destination. Start with the basics, clear the vendors from Public Beach and just empty the trash bins once a month.
I have had an extra day on GC every time I have travelled since Covid due to flight cancellations. I actually count on it now.
Kenny, please tell us how many million the Barbados subsidized flights will cost taxpayers of this country and put on some F*ing Miami flights!
This is because Cayman’s largest base of tourists comes from the US and Americans are now preferring to fly closer to home given the conflicts in Russia, Ukraine, and now Israel. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here but count our blessings.
Yes, it’s all those tourists getting in bad accidents in the middle of the night.
All the long time tourists i spoke to are shocked at the price of everything. Care is needed here
Many long term residents and British passport holders are leaving too, since last year I noticed. All bad signs.
It’s a great thing.
And the problem is?
The problem is that there won’t be anyone left to generate the income needed to feed so many lazy entitled behinds.
Yep detractors and parasites etal. Bad talk the numbers, the department amd the Minister now. in tne immortal words of Andy and Barefoot{slightly edited }”Ona take That”.
What are you talking about?
the billionaie’s smiling…ZZZZZZ
Must be those full up Barbados and Panama flights.
If there are 8,000 rooms still available, why the need to keep building all those hotels. Looks like the hotels on island are not being filled.
Need some entertainment spots! The closing of Royal Palms etc. has made Cayman boring at night!
Airfares to Cayman seem to be down a bit and if you can find an AirB&B, then Cayman can be a reasonably priced trip. The hotels are still way overpriced especially when 7mb has such erosion. Dropping $600+ a night on a hotel room when the beach is gone is crazy. Those hotels should be lowered to $200/ night.
The market is not listening to your sage advice.
Praise be to Kenny.
So tourism arrival numbers are still lower than pre-covid, and the cayman government wants to pretend that this is a “success”?
What a joke.
Most tourist destinations in the Caribbean have tourism arrival numbers far above pre-covid levels, since 2021.
The reality is that the Cayman government destroyed countless Cayman businesses by irrationally shutting down boarders for 2 years. Now they want to pretend that there were no consequences.
Disgrace.
Meanwhile, all the policitians were taking full salaries.
No. The reality is they turned a little island paradise into a concrete jungle, shook hands with greedy developers, destroyed SMB (and continue to do so). Cayman lost its island charm and it’s identity over the last two decades at an astounding rate. They have destruction the very things tourist come here to see, and the way we wanted to be.
Heartbreaking stuff.
All thanks to his majesty,King Kenny, and his magical billboards.
Wrong. Thank the regressives.
What is wrong with Kenneth Bryan? Every dog and his sister agrees we have too many cruise ships, and every opportunity he gets he is asking for more cruise ships.
What is wrong with Kenneth Bryan? How much time you got?
Is uncle Dart paying you to post?