Cayman air arrivals soar as cruise numbers sink
(CNS): April 2025 proved to be another great month for overnight guests, with 42,757 people taking a vacation here, a 15% increase over April 2024. However, the number of cruise visitors was one of the worst Aprils on record, with a 26.6% decrease compared to last year. But the decline isn’t unique to Cayman. Jamaica and other ports with cruise berthing facilities are, as predicted, being affected by a changing cruise industry.
Even though cruise passenger arrivals fell to just under 84,000 in April, because of the increase in arrivals during the first quarter of the year, the total number of cruise visitors for the first four months of 2025 is still up by 4%, reaching a total of more than half a million people.
The drop in cruise arrivals is offset by the continued increase in air arrivals, providing local tourism businesses with an opportunity to still cater to overnight guests, most of whom continue to come from the United States.
Visitors from the South and Northeast United States showed double-digit increases of 28.3% and 25.3% year-over-year. The Midwest also saw an increase of 9.6%. Canada delivered modest growth of 1.4% in April 2024, representing 5.9% of the total stayover arrivals for the month, according to the Department of Tourism’s latest figures.
People coming in from the UK, Ireland and the rest of Europe, and Latin America all increased, but collectively these countries account for less than 8% of the total tourists that are visiting Cayman.
Tourism Minister Gary Rutty, a former tourism professional and hotelier, said the excellent results demonstrate the power of partnership.
“These statistics are tangible results of success because of the active collaboration the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism exercises in engaging with our on-island partners to drive demand and with our aviation partners to ensure that we have the necessary airlift to complement our marketing and business development efforts,” he added.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Good.
More relief from the cruise pier screamers .
This should be our focus ,stay over tourism. Focus on smaller highend CruiseShips ,better for the economy and environment. If I never saw another Carnival ship In the Cayman Islands I would be so happy. Put Cayman and its environment first. Let’s hope this is a priority for our new government finally.
Hmmmm… my plane is empty. My condo is empty and I had no problem renting a car. I must’ve just picked an off week to travel. I do hope tourism is soaring because I’m getting concerned if they will cancel the flight due to not enough people on it.
Need to do more research please. https://caribbeanfocus.com/jamaica-saw-a-slight-decline-in-cruise-passenger-arrivals-but-there-are-positive-signs/. Jamaica went down by 1 percent. This report is from Barbados .
The island’s performance came as the region’s overall cruise performance continued to shine, with nearly 44 million cruise visits across the Caribbean.
That was a 10.3 percent regional increase over the previous year, and a 10.9 percent improvement over the pre-pandemic levels of 2019. By comparison, the Caribbean reported 30.55 million cruise arrivals in 2023.
So what’s ahead for Caribbean cruises in 2025? Initial projections are forecasting 5 to 7 percent growth for the year, or a total of 36 million cruise visitors.
Our industry is falling off the cliff because of no infrastructure !!!!! So it is not declining across the region. crime and hurricane has definitely impacted areas were drug gangs
With the influx of Jamaicansdrugs/gangs added to uncontrolled Public beach vendor/higglers, Cayman is losing its reputation as a safe hassle-free destination.
Hopefully the new government will clean up what the previous lot accepted as business as usual .
100%. Clear Public Beach and give it back to the people. For the Premier this will be a win for him as Leader and MP for WBS.
the genius team of Kenny B and Joey Who would see this as a reason to build a massive cruise port.
thank the lord for democratic elections
Let’s hope we are not counting returning expat residents like a previous director did.
Are Jamaicans expats..?
What do you think? Are other nationalities?
Yes. So are Trinis and Bajans – but our own government has been hell-bent on treating them as locals, and even re-defining what a local is, to accommodate their own ambitions.
ALL persons arriving by air are counted. If you go to Miami for the day, you’re counted when you return. Even the Director of Tourism and her staff are counted every time they return from their jaunts overseas.
It would be interesting to know the number of visitors ONLY without the locals and residents being counted as well.
Good, we really don’t need the cruise sheep.
… nor all their toasty deeps and cheeps.
so much better for the environment, the economy, and society.
And better for getting higglers and drug pushers off the public beach .