Caribbean Region Posts Tourism Gains, Especially in Cruises
Caribbean Region Posts Tourism Gains, Especially in Cruises
By Doreen Hemlock
A recovering U.S. economy and cold winter are giving a boost to Caribbean tourism. Jamaica reported a 7.7 percent gain in stopover visitors and 11.2 percent uptick in cruise passenger arrivals in October through December last year, compared to the same quarter in 2009.
For January, preliminary data shows a 7.6 per gain in airport arrivals and 10.5 percent increase in cruise passenger arrivals from a year earlier, Jamaican authorities said.
St. Lucia reported 305,937 overnight tourists in 2010, up 10 percent from the previous year and its second best year ever. The 2010 total is just 1 percent below the all-time high recorded in 2006, the St. Lucia Tourist Board said.
Barbados posted 52,685 tourist arrivals in January, up 8.7 percent from January 2010, the Barbados Tourism Authority said. It was the best January in the past four years.
The gains come as airlines increase routes to the island region, which depends on South Florida as a major supplier of its goods and services.
Among recent airline additions, JetBlue Airways launched service to Providenciales in the Turks & Caicos Islands from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and from Boston’s Logan International Airport.
A 118-room Courtyard by Marriott recently opened in Bridgetown in Barbados, complete with an outdoor pool, fitness center, business center and guest laundry. The hotel lobby features a 57-inch LCD touch-screen packed with local information, maps, weather, and news, business and sports headlines.
In the Bahamas, construction began this winter on the $3.4 billion, Baha Mar complex on Nassau’s Cable Beach, the largest tourism venture in the Caribbean. It is scheduled to open by 2015, financed by China’s export-import bank.
Plans call for a total four hotels with about 2,250 rooms, a massive casino, a golf course, stores and a convention center, among other amenities. The Baha Mar project is slated to open by 2015. The Caribbean, the world’s most tourism-dependent region, suffered a sharp drop in travel revenues in 2009 during the global recession.
Last year, business bounced back a bit. A sample of Caribbean hotels showed occupancy rose marginally to 61 percent and average rate ticked up 3 percent to $161 a night, helping the area recover some ground lost in the 2008-2009 slump, according to Smith Travel Research of Hendersonville, Tenn.
The cruise industry is performing better than hotels in the Caribbean. That’s because budget-conscious travelers perceive cruises as good value, partly because the trips include meals, rooms and many activities in a pre-set price.
