2024 stay-over visitors still below 2019 record numbers
(CNS): Over 137,000 stay-over visitors arrived in the Cayman Islands between January and March of this year, which is the second-highest figure for the first quarter of any year since records began and a 13.4% increase over the 2023 figure. The numbers were boosted because Easter was in March this year, leading to a standout month when 57,040 stayover guests visited the islands. This was not only 23% higher than last year but the second-highest number for a single month in Cayman’s history. But the total arrival count for the first three months of this year is still at 94% of the record-breaking number in 2019.
There were 243 more flights into the Cayman Islands during this period than at the same time last year. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), in the first quarter of 2024, there were 226,270 airline seats on routes into Cayman from the USA, Canada, the UK and Ireland, representing a 21% increase over last year. The United States remained the primary source market for the visitors (83%), while Canada was the second largest source market (8.3%), and 5% of arrivals came from the UK and Europe
“These first quarter visitation results show that demand for travel to the Cayman Islands is high,” said Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan. “And with the increased room stock that Hotel Indigo’s opening in May will bring, we look forward to seeing more tourists arriving and filling those rooms.”
Aviation remains a top priority for the destination. In March, Tourism Director Rosa Harris led a Cayman Islands delegation to Routes Americas, the region’s leading air service development event, in Bogota, Colombia, where they held more than 20 meetings with airlines and airports.
“We are pleased with the increased airlift in the first quarter of 2024, but it is important that we continue to seek out business development opportunities for the Cayman Islands,” she said. “Aviation conferences like Routes Americas give us a platform to deepen our relationships with existing carriers and develop relationships with new carriers to ensure a steady stream of visitors to our islands throughout the year.”
Explaining the recovery strategy post-COVID, Harris said the goal is to return to and exceed 2019 visitor numbers this year. Despite already being 6% down, she said the destination was on pace to do that. As well as expanding the Cayman Islands presence through exhibitions and promotional events, the Department of Tourism plans to engage with local partners to ensure their presence at critical travel conferences and trade shows throughout 2024.
“Our competition is also aggressively in the marketplace, so we will continue to be purposeful and
strategic with our placement and attendance in 2024,” Harris added. “Partner participation in these shows highlights the industry’s commitment to working with CIDOT, and we look forward to engaging with them as they help us develop new markets to grow visitation and flatten our seasonality.”
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Cayman is too expensive. This place is for the rich to invest in property and that’s pretty much it. Every corner of west bay road has a new hotel going up for “high net worth” visitors. When you get those folks here, we have nothing to entertain them with. Cayman has always been a family destination and should continue as such. I have spoken to persons who have been visiting for 30 plus years who are already retired and say that they cannot afford to continue visiting with the current prices. Keep it up guys, until SMB becomes a ghost town ok? So shortsighted for the short term gain. We are still a family oriented destination I guess, as long as your a rich family.
I’ve been coming down 2-3x a year for over 2 decades until the last few years. Now, I come down once a year in the summer when rates are less and I bring my breakfast and snacks with me in my carry on. I limit my meal spending to light dinners instead of the splurge meals of the past. I stay in an Airbnb instead of a hotel. There is really no more nightlife that I feel is safe or fun, so I’m back in my room by 9 -10 pm. Cayman has really changed. Too expensive, too built up, lost the island vibe, no more places like Royal Palms, and safety in the clubs/ after dark has started to concern me.
European leisure travel to Cayman is low because CIDoT has NO marketing programs in Europe. Haven’t had any for over a decade.
Oops, I forgot their strategy is “if we build it, they will come”. Ha!
place too expensive!
And nothing really to do- Royal Palms, Tiki, Calico Jacks gone. No more dance clubs. Only live music at Peppers. Hotels are way overpriced on one end of 7mb that no longer have beach. Too much construction and congestion.
Great news for the Air B&B and VRBO type owners!
Bad news for those who live in complexes which are being overtaken by short term guests due to greedy owners looking for maximum profits.
Hoteliers must be losing business to this greedy short term rental trend.
Yet another quality of life downgrade.
These owners are why rental rates are outrageous and it is happening globally.
Sheesh, let’s go back to school, 8’th grade – non-Cayman… Rates reflect what renters are willing to pay! If renters balk at high rates and don’t rent, the prices will go down. The lack of basic logic is – never mind, just look at who you elect, term after term, after term.
Sorry, I couldn’t hear your complaint because my ear is deafened by two louder and more historic points of view
1) Maximise return on investment
2) Before ABB & VRBO there was … Cayman Villa Rentals. Both the company and the principle. Also a number of small ‘guest houses’ dotted around the country. Because lots of Caymanians (and other residents) recognized that they too could get some of the tourism business by renting out their property (of various descriptions).
So suggesting that we should now abandon that business model which has stood a lot of us Caymanians in good stead to supplement our income is, well, its just not going to happen.
BTW hoteliers don’t lose out to villas, because its two different segements of the market (yes with overlap but not as much as you might think). Its why – even before ABB & VRBO – condos made up more of Cayman’s tourism room stock than hotel rooms. And why even with ABB etc. people still stay in hotels. Different products for different desires / market segments.
If you want to reduce residential short-term rentals you’ll need to segregate the local real-estate market into ‘short-term’ and ‘long-term’ zones (somehow) and accept a significant reduction in overall tourist numbers. Below the historic levels. And not just the 5 years ago maximum but further back than that.
But think about it. If tourism wasn’t the residential housing problem when tourism was at its peak then it can’t be the problem now. We have other reasons why residential housing is being seen as ‘practically unattainable’. So stop letting yourself be fooled by red herrings and ask our prospective politicians what they think are the real problems and solutions. Any who say tourism is causing the problem are wrong.
More billboards is what we need. That will have them coming in droves and spending their life savings when they land.
They’ll need their life savings to pay for very expensive everything .
Our famous once tranquil beach is either disappearing, becoming a construction site, or overrun by Jamaicans hard selling something you don’t need.
Boston flights! In the winter, we do not want to connect in JFK because if our weather is bad, so is theirs. We want to get up and out and on our way. Boston would cover people from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. We still like to travel in the summer, too!
Direct to Boston was given a chance several years ago and did not make it.
If I recall Jet Blue continues to run the Boston flights on saturdays during high season and every time I’ve been on it, the flight has been full.
There’s a general issue with CAL which I don’t have an answer to but if you fly to/from Cayman on Jet Blue, or United or whatever, to the same airport that CAL flies to: you’ll find the CAL flights half empty and the others fully booked. Exactly what causes that, I don’t know but something needs to be done to fix it.
It was not promoted. The flight last year? got action because it was advertised, but only ran 2? days a week ( right after the covid opening)
30@7.26am – Famous last words! Our player in the international field, Cayman Airways opened the very lucrative Atlanta route with concessions from Hartsfield and Delta code-sharing..that didn’t ‘work out’ either! Ask Delta!
Neither did CAL being the original exclusive airlift provider to TCI Govt. on MIA/Grand Turk route in the earky 1990s. They didn’t work out because CAL gave them up before they profited.
Then they plow resources into pointless arrangements like the Barbados route.
But CAL does not know how to make money, they’re so dependent on annual Govt. hand out!
So, to the point, choosing or keeping routes and maximizing airlift per logic is not CAL’s forte, as a “company” and target marketing is questionable; it’s beholding to the whims of the Ministry and Department of Tourism, of the day…real airline professionals!
A lot of CAL flights don’t match up with northeast connecting flights.
Cayman Airways has a CFO and a board of directors. Surely they make decisions but presumably having dome a feasibility study. Why is Bryan involved at all. Just like his silly buses he ordered to years ago.
If as Minister of Tourism why has he not followed the lead of the Turks and Caicos Islands and got Virgin flying to Cayman.
Finally Bryan either develop the Smatts land or sell it.
Finally to you and your cronies I remind you procrastination is the thief of time.
Thanks for the morning laugh “presumably having done a feasibility study”. You must be a new arrival in these beautiful Islands.
Funny you should say that. I have been here over 40 years and seen all the daft things CIG has done.
Carpe Diem
Oh snap. Barbados flights not working out. Who kew!
The Barbados flight will continue until our independence is granted ad Kenny is annointed Prime Minister.
Saunders will be the Prime Minister of the new Jamaica they are creating.
European travel is low because 1. The BA direct is very expensive and unreliable and 2. There are no connecting flights either on the way here or the way back without having to over night in the US.
Another thing is the cost of staying here is so high, so when you add the flight, hotel room and then food, it all adds up.
Do not worry, once the Kenny & Rosa rich people private terminal is up and running, the arrival numbers will jump.
Don’t blame BA.
Take a cold hard look at the new Cayman. Too expensive, not much to do, town overrun by cheap cruisers, roads jammed with tour buses, unreliable overpriced taxi service, Jamaican higglers on the beach, not a Caymanian in sight, rude Jamaicans , Indian jewelry sales pushers .
After one visit why would they come back.? we’ll only have condo owners paying repeat visits.
BINGO! Here’s the deal…as a tourist destination in the Caribbean Cayman (sorry to say it) has very little to offer. We have one really nice beach…most island nations have countless really nice beaches. We have no mountains or jungles or waterfalls or any of that stuff.
We have very little truly local food or cultural experiences to speak of.
We don’t have anything cheap/affordable
What we have that people like is as follows:
Diving
Safety
Easy to get to
No hagglers on the beach
Guess what? The diving is getting worse each year because the reef keeps dying.
Safety is getting worse every day for the roads and criminals. We’ve now had a mass shooting which garnered international press.
It’s not as easy to get here as it used to be and getting home without overnight in Miami is increasingly difficult.
Salespeople on the damn beaches now.
Our product even from 2019 until now is vastly inferior to what it was in 2019. In many ways it is becoming inferior to our competitors and will continue to do so.
Kenny has no vision of any real value and needs to go…yesterday!
Spot on. Well said.
Daily flight to JFK would be great. Continue to expand that market. Ditch Barbados!
Here’s a thought….Have the JFK flight leave here at noon so that it arrives at JFK in time to catch flights onwards to other destinations like Europe. Right now it lands at 10 pm and you must get a hotel before continuing on anywhere else! Talk about European connectivity.
I try to avoid JFK at all costs. Why anyone would aim to fly into that hub is beyond me.
Clearly the focus needs to be on the US market. There needs to be a least 2 KX flights a day to Miami, 7 am and 4pm. The morning can give access to connecting flights in the US and afternoon to Europe. The 4pm then turns around and comes back at 7pm allowing to return from Europe or day trips to MIA. If KX doesn’t want to do it then subsidize AA to get back to 3 or 4 MIA flights a day. Connecting in Charlotte or Philadelphia on AA is not feasible given the short connections to Europe.
Kenny and team at CITA “So based on these numbers we should add a second Barbados flight “
what about all the people from Barbados
We won’t be breaking any numbers with bringing 1 passenger to Cayman on the Barbados flight. Complete waste of money and unnecessary wear and tear of our new airplanes.
I would like to see proof of money collected for this route
You have no authority to see anything, our Premier will decide what and when any information is released to the taxpayer/dummies.
When she has the first press conference🤔🤔🤔