BUMPER YEAR FOR CARIBBEAN TOURISM

It was a record-breaking year for the Caribbean region last year, even in the face of a pair of historic hurricanes.

The region welcomed more than 30 million travellers for the first time ever, according to the latest report from the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organization.

Ryan Skeete, the CTO’s director of research says that these outcomes resulted in an overall increase of 1.7 per cent in 2017, making it the eighth consecutive year of growth.

The 30 million stay-over visitors were accompanied by 27 million cruise passengers, itself a 2.4 percent increase over the previous year.

The region’s stay-over visitors contributed more than $37 billion to the Caribbean economy, according to the CTO, which was a 2.6 percent increase over 2016.

The United States remained the dominant source market for Caribbean tourism, with just under 15 million visitors coming to the Caribbean, followed by Canada, Europe and the United Kingdom.

And the trend is looking up for the region in 2018, with the CTO predicting growth of two to three percent in both stay-over and cruise arrivals.