The summer 2025 tourism slump continued, with August becoming one of the worst months for Cayman Islands tourist arrivals in the last 25 years, according to statistics released by the Department of Tourism last week.
The month saw 25,130 tourist air passenger arrivals and 49,129 cruise passenger arrivals, with the latter being the lowest total in an August not impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in the last 14 years.
The combined total of 74,259 air and cruise arrivals was the lowest for total visitors for a year not impacted by the pandemic since October 2011, when only 62,958 tourists arrived in the Cayman Islands.
Prior to October 2011 and going back to January 2000, the only years with fewer combined air and cruise arrivals were September and October 2004 – which were both impacted by the damage caused to Grand Cayman by Hurricane Ivan – and September 2000, when only 62,565 combined tourists arrived on island.
Summer slump
The months of May, June, July and August this year have been slow for Cayman Islands tourism this year. A Compass article in September highlighted the perception that the slow tourism season seemed to have started earlier this year and that tourists were spending less than in previous years.
Cruise arrivals were lower in each of the months between May and August compared to the same months last year. July saw slightly more air arrivals compared to 2024, but May, June and August all had fewer air tourist arrivals compared to last year.
Although stayover tourist arrivals were only 3.3% less between May and August 2025 compared to last year, cruise tourist arrivals saw a significant 16.8% dip over the same months compared to 2024.
The arrival figures for September have yet to be released, but cruise passenger arrivals will likely also show a decline because only 11 ships were scheduled to call on the port over the month – one less than in August.
Better days ahead
Despite the sluggish summer for tourist arrivals, based on the schedule of calling ships, a strong fourth quarter is expected for cruise ship passenger arrivals, which should allow the final figure for 2025 to surpass that of 2024 by a much as 6%.
The final three months of 2025 are set to see an increasing number of cruise ships arrivals. In October, 19 ships are scheduled to arrive, with seven days of more than one ship. The schedule for November has 38 ships arriving, with 11 days of more than one ship and the most being five scheduled to arrive on 26 Nov.
December will see 52 ships coming to port, and 16 days of more than one ship. Christmas Eve will see the most ships in port for the month, when five are scheduled to arrive.
In addition, a Compass article earlier this week highlighted a forecast major rebound in cruise arrivals based on advanced scheduling, with 1,376,467 projected in 2026 and 1,693,484 projected in 2027.
Stayover tourism is also expected to increase significantly through 2029, according to BMI’s ‘Caribbean Tourism Report Q3 2025’. It states that Cayman’s visitor arrivals are forecast to rise by an average of 6.4% annually, pushing total air arrivals to 594,460 by 2029.
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