The number of visitors to the Cayman Islands that arrived by cruise ship or plane both exceeded government targets in 2022.
The islands welcomed 1.28 million tourists last year, consisting of 743,394 cruise passengers and 284,274 stayover visitors.
Monthly air arrivals still below pre-pandemic levels
At the start of Cayman’s reopening following the COVID pandemic, the Department of Tourism set a goal of 200,000 to 256,000 stayover visitors for 2022 to achieve the Tourism Ministry’s objective of taking in at least 40% of 2019’s tourism tax revenue.
Following a slow start in January with just 5,864 stayover visitors, tourist air arrivals climbed steadily to 32,356 in July, before a typical decline during the slow season of September and October.
In the fourth quarter of last year, with all travel restrictions lifted, the number of stayover tourists reached between 89% and 91% over those three months in 2019.
Despite the successful recovery and 1% higher airline seat capacity than pre-pandemic, fourth quarter tourism stats did not, as anticipated, exceed the activity in the same period in 2019. Compared to the record 116,449 air arrivals in the final quarter of that year, Cayman saw 103,650 tourists arriving by air in the last three months of 2022.
For the entire year of 2022, Cayman recorded 57% of the pre-pandemic visitation numbers in 2019 – the record year for visitor numbers.
“Confidence in the destination due to our measured and phased approach to reopening post the COVID-19 lockdown led to pent up demand which accelerated our visitation volume once all travel restrictions were dropped,” said Rosa Harris, director of tourism in a press release.
“The quality of our accommodations and attractions, retail offerings and restaurants as well as a vibrant events calendar, including such notable events as the Capella Music Festival, the Cayman Islands marathon and meetings and incentives groups continue to drive visitors to the destination.”
Longer average stays
The United States accounted for 80.8% of all stayover visitors in 2022, while the UK and Ireland was the fastest recovering market, reaching 77% of 2019’s visitation level.
Canada even exceeded 2019’s visitor numbers in July, October and December, ending the year at 66% of 2019’s level for 2022 overall.
Latin America was the third-fastest recovering market, reaching 60% of 2019’s visitation numbers.
Just less than half of all stayover tourists, 46.7%, were repeat visitors to the islands, up from 44.4% in 2019.
The average length of stay increased to 7.6 nights in 2022 compared with 5.9 nights three years before.
Based on data from STR Inc., which provides statistics on the global hotel industry, the average daily rate for hotels in the destination increased by 12% over 2019, government said in its press release.
Cruise arrivals down
Cruise ships returned to the Cayman Islands in March 2022.
In 2022 overall, 261 ships brought 743,394 cruise tourists to Grand Cayman, down from 1.83 million in the last year before the lockdown caused by the pandemic.
In the second half of last year, monthly cruise arrivals ranged from 60% to 73% of the 2019 levels.
Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan, said, “Cruise tourism is the epicentre of Caymanian entrepreneurship representing a higher percentage of local business owners than any other aspect of tourism and is a vital part of our tourism offering.”
He said government will continue to actively manage the volume of cruise both in terms of the quality of ships in port and the number of passengers who disembark, to “bring cruise tourism back in a measured and sustainable way in 2023”.
The minister set an overall visitation goal of 70% of 2019’s statistics for this year.
“We anticipate that 2023 will be a momentous year for tourism with a full calendar year of visitors to allow us to reset our seasonality aligned with new expectations for travel post-pandemic,” he said.
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