by Brian Major
Last updated: 12:20 PM ET, Wed January 22, 2025
Surmounting an “unusually active hurricane season” in 2024
which forced the closure of Owen Roberts International Airport due to hurricane
Beryl in early July, the Cayman Islands hosted 437,842 overnight, land-based visitors
in 2024, a two percent increase over 2023, said Cayman Islands Department of Tourism
(CIDOT) officials in a statement.
The Caribbean nation posted particularly strong visitation
numbers in March 2024, producing the Cayman Islands’ second highest number of monthly
arrivals in the destination’s history with 57,040 overnight travelers, said
CIDOT officials.
December, during which the Cayman Islands hosted 52,046
arrivals, also witnessed also generated higher arrivals, representing the
second-highest number of visitors for December in recorded history and a year-over-year
increase of 4.3 percent.
Two new hotel properties debuted in Cayman Islands in 2024,
the VIDA Cayman Islands and Hotel Indigo Grand Cayman. The resorts added 578 new
rooms to the destination, bringing the island’s total to 8,356.
The destination’s robust traveler arrivals generated
increased revenues for Cayman Island hotels, which posted a nine percent
year-over-year increase in hotel room average daily rate (ADR) between January and
November of 2024, according to research firm STR.
Increased airline capacity also helped to drive 2024’s
higher overnight visitor numbers. According to the International Air Transport
Association (IATA), Cayman airlift increased eight percent year-over-year between
January and December of 2024, with 884,279 airline seats. There were 5,342
flights into the destination during the period, an increase of 461 flights over
2023.
In the U.S., the Cayman Islands’ largest traveler source market, the air
capacity uptick was driven by United Airlines with expanded service from
Newark, Washington D.C. and Houston, said CIDOT. Delta Airlines also increased
its flights from Atlanta while JetBlue Airways increased its Cayman Islands capacity
departing from Boston.
“It was gratifying to see such positive growth in
our stayover visitation numbers for 2024,” said Kenneth Bryan, the Cayman
Islands’ deputy premier and minister of tourism. “Despite our strong results,
globally the tourism sector faces economic, geopolitical and climate
challenges. As an industry, locally we are not immune to these global shocks.”
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