By: Staff Writer
March 14, 2023
The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) in their Tourism Performance and Outlook Report, said that the region had 28.3m tourist visits in 2022, representing 88.6 percent of 2019 pre-pandemic tourism arrivals
Neil Walters, Acting Secretary General of the CTO, confirmed that the Caribbean had one of the quickest recovery rates globally in 2022, with 28.3 million registered tourist visits in 2022. This represents 88.6 percent of the visitors who arrived in 2019, which served as the baseline year for typical tourism activity before the pandemic.
He reported that international travel is expected to contribute to the region’s substantial gains already registered thanks to the robust United States market, which continues to drive the region’s recovery.
There was an estimated 28.1 percent increase in visitors coming from the U.S. market in 2022. At the end of the year, 14.6 million American tourists visited the region, 3.2 million more than the 11.4 million in 2021.
Mr Walters also said: “In our New Year’s message, we would have given the first indication of the strong recovery experienced in the regional tourism sector during 2022. Today, we can confirm that in 2022, the second full year of the global pandemic, the Caribbean tourism industry was resilient and built on the rebound that was noticeable from the middle of 2021. By the end of 2022, there were 28.3 million registered tourist visits in the Caribbean, approximately 52.4% more than there were in 2021. The region accounted for 3.1% of all arrivals worldwide, down one percentage point from the historically high share of 4.1% recorded in 2021.”
Arrivals from the European market increased by 81 percent in 2022 when compared to 2021. The 5.2 million tourists from this market were almost double the 2.8 million in 2021. This represented 18.3 percent of all arrivals in 2022. “All regions of the Caribbean saw an increase in international visitor arrivals over 2021, but only the Dutch Caribbean and the US Territories surpassed their 2019 levels. This is because the results by region matched the results in the destinations,” Mr Walters said.
Due to travel restrictions in early 2022, the Canadian market has recovered more slowly at 60 percent, while the lack of availability of intra-regional airlift has negatively impacted regional connectivity.
“Nearly 90 percent of the region’s travel demand for 2019 has already been recovered,” reported Walters, with destinations such as Curaçao, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, Turks and Caicos, and the U.S. Virgin Islands already surpassing their pre-pandemic levels.
Caribbean destinations can expect this recovery to continue into 2023, albeit at a slower rate, Walters explained, predicting that growth will be uneven among the destinations, with additional countries and territories exceeding their 2019 levels.
According to STR, the average daily rate at hotels increased by 21.7 percent to US$290.60 in 2022. The revenue per available room surged by 66.4 percent to $176.46, and the number of available rooms (up 4.4 percent) as well as room income (up 73.6 percent) increased. After two challenging years for the aviation industry, global air passenger traffic recovered significantly in 2022.
It is estimated that visitors to the Caribbean region spent between $36.5 and $37.5 billion in 2022, an increase of 70 to 75 percent compared to 2021.
It is expected that overall arrivals to the region will increase by between 10 and 15 percent when compared to 2022, with 31.2 to 32.6 million tourists visiting the region this year. The cruise industry is also anticipated to continue recovering and expanding to meet increasing demand, with 32 to 33 million cruise passenger visits expected – a five to 10 percent increase over the pre-COVID baseline figure.
He also added about the Omicron variant that: “Despite the Omicron variant of the coronavirus’ discovery and the reinstatement of some temporary travel bans in a few locations in January, demand for Caribbean vacations was usually strong. Not only were there more visitors each month than in the corresponding month of 2021, but there was also a gradual return to 2019 levels, which was an indication of ongoing improvement.”