11 NOV 2019: Two new reports indicate that the Caribbean region has shrugged off the effects of recent hurricanes – including Dorian this fall – and has posted strong arrivals in 2019. Moreover, future bookings suggest that the numbers will continue to climb in the coming months.
In both cases, Canada is leading the way, posting 15.2 percent arrivals gains during the first three quarters of the year over 2018 and forecast growth of 8.2 percent between Nov. 1 and Jan. 31, 2020, according to travel analytics firm ForwardKeys, which released its findings at World Travel Market last week in London.
Overall, forward bookings for the coming winter season are currently 1.6 percent ahead of where they were at the equivalent point last year, according to the report. The Netherlands is forecast to be the top gainer (42.1%), though the total numbers are small, followed by France (9.8%), Canada and Argentina (8.1%). Notably, the US, which is the Caribbean’s most important source market, is expected to achieve about five percent growth, and the rest of the world collectively 3.2 percent.
However, the outlook is not universally positive. Forward bookings to the top destination in the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic, are currently 14.2 percent behind and those to the Bahamas and Aruba are 6.4 percent and 1.4 percent behind respectively. Encouraging growth is seen from Puerto Rico, 28 percent ahead, which reflects recovery from a significant downturn after hurricane Maria in December 2017.
As for Q1-3, ForwardKeys reports that travel to the Caribbean has shown a healthy increase, up 5.2 percent up on the same period in 2018. The top source market has been the U.S., with 56 percent share and 9 percent growth, which lagged Canada’s growth of over 15 percent.
CANADA
Citing its own first-half statistics, Caribbean Tourism Organization chairman Dominic Fedee said the Caribbean welcomed 17.1 million tourists, 1.5 million more than the corresponding period in 2018. There were 2.1 million Canadian visits, helped by “the strength of the Canadian dollar with respect to the US dollar and increasing discretionary spending among Canadian consumers,” according to the CTO.
Indeed, more Canadians visited 15 out of the CTO’s 21 member destinations, including high volume destinations Cuba and Jamaica marginally besting their numbers from a year ago (1.1% and 0.8%, respectively). The two top-performing destinations during the period were St. Maarten (452.4%) and Anguilla (230%). Other destinations saw more moderate increases, ranging from 6.5 percent in Belize to 29.4 percent in Puerto Rico. Six destinations recorded declines, the most significant of which were registered in Aruba (-11.2%), Guyana (-10.6%) and Barbados (-4.1%). Notably, arrivals to the Dominican Republic contracted marginally by -0.8% in the same period.
CRUISING
Another key market for the Caribbean, cruising, simply exploded with a record 16.7 million cruise visits in the first half of the year, 1.3 million more than in the same period of 2018. The present rate of growth – estimated to be 8.1 percent – eclipses that for similar periods in the last four years.
HURRICANES
A wildcard that can quickly alter the fate of destinations and the best-researched forecasts, of course, are hurricanes – a “major scourge” that
can take islands years to recover from, points out ForwardKeys’ research. For example, the firm says it has taken Puerto Rico 15 months to reach 70 percent of pre-hurricane arrivals and St. Maarten 20 months.
In the case of the Bahamas, ForwardKeys expects the recovery from Hurricane Dorian to take less time because the initial rebound in both post-hurricane arrivals has been stronger: just one month after the hurricane, the Bahamas has reached 80 percent of pre-hurricane arrivals.
“What we have seen in recent years is that the Caribbean is an incredibly popular destination,” says Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys. “When some parts of it have been hit with horrendous hurricanes and other issues, tourists did not give up on their desire for a holiday in paradise; they chose other parts of it to visit instead. We saw that syndrome earlier this year, when stories in the U.S. media about tourists who had died in the Dominican Republic, caused bookings to collapse; however, other islands, most notably Jamaica, the Bahamas and Aruba saw a visitor surge.”
For its part, the CTO is not only worried about the weather. Global issues such as Brexit and the U.S.-China trade war keep tourism execs awake at night. However, on the bright side, the CTO notes, “Worldwide, the demand for and spending on leisure travel remains high and is driven by the craving for new experiences. The region is therefore well-positioned to benefit due to the diversity of the tourism product among the destinations. (And) the expansion of air access and the increased hotel capacity coupled with the marketing initiatives will give rise to sustained growth in the coming months…”