GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands--Air arrivals into the Cayman Islands continued their positive trend in April with 46,079 visitors, an increase of 17.98 per cent over 2018. This represents the best April in recorded history and the first time the destination welcomed over 40,000 stayover visitors in the month of April. April also saw an increase of 2.17 per cent in cruise arrivals, with 154,983 passengers arriving to its shores. Based on preliminary estimates, total visitor spend for the period January-April 2019 was approximately million Cayman Islands dollars (KY).
As the official host of the 2019 Carifta Games held April 20-22, the Cayman Islands welcomed a total of 2,076 visitors from the Caribbean. Regional visits to the Cayman Islands during April 2019 were led by Jamaica and followed by the Bahamas, which added 504 and 218 visitors, respectively. Caribbean arrivals accounted for 2.78 percentage points of the growth rate in total visits for the destination in April.
“Diversification in visitation is essential to increasing our stayover performance and levelling seasonality,” commented Deputy Premier and Minister for Tourism, Moses Kirkconnell. “Sports tourism creates opportunities to positively impact both visitation and total visitor spend. I am proud that the Cayman Islands will host the third annual Cayman Islands Classic this fall and look forward to welcoming the teams and their fans from across the United States.”
The Cayman Islands Classic is an annual preseason college basketball tournament that will be held November 25-27. The tournament features eight division one teams who will compete at the John Gray High School gymnasium. To learn more about the Cayman Islands Classic, visit
www.caymanislandsclassic.com . For more information and detailed arrival statistics, visit
www.visitcaymanislands.com/statistics .
