by Brian Major
Last updated: 12:05 AM ET, Fri May 3, 2019
Add the Cayman Islands to the list of Caribbean destinations reporting strong first-quarter visitor totals. Cayman hosted 59,563 land-based, overnight guests in March, the highest figure the Caribbean destination has ever recorded in any month, said Cayman Islands Department of Tourism (CIDOT) officials this week.
Cayman's record-breaking month capped an equally strong first quarter in terms of land arrivals. More than 145,800 guests visited the destination between January 1 and March 31 of 2019, an 8.67 percent year-over-year increase compared with 2018. The March visitor total represents an 8.37 percent year-over-year increase over 2018 figures.
CIDOT officials said Cayman Airways' new Denver route has "directly influenced" the destination's strong 2019 overnight visitor growth. The new route is bringing "new guests from the southwest region of the United States" to Cayman, and comes "despite the challenges presented by the grounding of CAL's two new 737 Max 8 aircraft." CIDOT officials say 683 visitors arrived in the Cayman Islands from Denver International Airport in March.
Cayman also continued the steady cruise-ship visitor growth that has placed Cayman among the Caribbean destinations most-visited by cruise passengers. In January 2019 CIDOT reported Cayman hosted the highest number of cruise passengers to visit Grand Cayman in any month period since record-keeping began.
While the cruise numbers dipped slightly in February and March compared to 2018, February's arrival numbers were still the third-best recorded since 2000, officials said.
In 2018, Cayman hosted 1.92 million cruise passengers, the third-highest total among Caribbean destinations tracked by the Caribbean Tourism Organization and a noteworthy figure considering the Cayman Islands is the only major Caribbean cruise destination without a modern port facility.
Backers of a referendum on the government's plan to build cruise ship piers and a port facility in Grand Cayman is said to be nearing the threshold of 5,000 signatures to trigger a public vote on the facility, which already has the support of Carnival Cruise Lines, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Disney Cruise Line.
"The Cayman Islands should be proud of its record-breaking stay-over performance in the first quarter of 2019," said Tourism Minister Moses Kirkconnell. "As a ministry and Department of Tourism, we are committed to developing innovative and authentic strategies for attracting travelers from key source markets."
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