PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten – The Florida-Caribbean Affiliation (FCCA), which advocates for the shared pursuits of the cruise sector together with Caribbean and Latin American locations and stakeholders, proudly reviews that the 2023-2024 cruise season has generated unprecedented financial advantages for the realm.
A examine launched at this time by Enterprise Analysis & Financial Advisors (BREA) exhibits that cruise tourism had a big effect. It generated $4.27 billion in direct spending. This quantity is about 27 % increased than the record set in 2018. The examine additionally discovered that cruise tourism created over 94,000 jobs. These jobs paid greater than $1.27 billion in wages throughout the 33 locations concerned.
Michele M. Paige, Chief Government Officer
“We couldn’t be prouder of those outcomes and what they imply for the lives and livelihoods of so many all through the Caribbean and Latin America,” stated Michele Paige, CEO, FCCA. “Along with displaying what cruise tourism brings to those locations’ economies, most of the examine’s findings may also function the inspiration of constructing additional mutual success between cruise traces and vacation spot stakeholders.”
The examine checked out how a lot cash is spent immediately. It used surveys from passengers and crew. It additionally thought-about spending by cruise traces on providers and provides. Moreover, it measured port revenues and jobs created by cruise ship visits.
We measured financial impacts by gathering information from native authorities businesses, regional growth teams, and worldwide financial organizations. This helped us consider results on jobs, wages, port charges, and taxes.
Cruise Tourism Expenditures Key findings
Cruise tourism generated $4.27 billion in expenditures, up 27% in comparison with the final examine in 2018 and the earlier report.
94,027 jobs have been supported by the business, up 19% in comparison with the final examine, paying a complete worker wage revenue of $1.27 billion.
Locations welcomed 29.4 million onshore visits from cruise passengers, with a mean spend of $104.36, producing a complete of $3.07 billion.
Locations additionally welcomed 3.9 million onshore visits from crew, with a mean spend of $58.78, producing a complete of $229.5 million.
Cruise traces spent $968.3 million, a mean of $29.3 million per vacation spot.
The 33.3 million passenger and crew visits characterize a 13% enhance in comparison with the earlier examine, and the 31 frequent locations within the 2018 and 2024 research skilled a 17% enhance in passenger visits.
Common per passenger spend elevated for 26 of the 31 frequent locations, and 14 locations recorded common spend charges above $100 per passenger (up from 12 in 2018).
On common, a single transit cruise name with 4,000 passengers and 1,640 crew generates $369,100 in passenger and crew spending alone: $339,800 and $29,300, respectively.
Oblique Advantages of Cruise Tourism
The examine’s measure of cruise tourism expenditures didn’t embrace oblique advantages of cruise tourism, together with provides bought by tour operators, eating places and port authorities, although the estimates of those expenditures served as the premise for complete employment and wage impacts.
The examine didn’t take into account different oblique advantages. For instance, it didn’t embrace spending from cruise passengers who return as stay-over visitors. It additionally didn’t measure different methods cruise traces spend cash that assist locations, like NGO partnerships and advertising.
The examine – which is engaged by the FCCA in partnership with its vacation spot companions as one in all some ways to foster the understanding of cruise tourism, its advantages and finest actualize its potential – was launched on the 30th annual FCCA Cruise Convention & Commerce Present in St. Maarten, additional including to the occasion’s give attention to maximizing mutual success for all all through cruise tourism by a sequence of conferences, workshops and networking alternatives between vacation spot stakeholders and cruise executives to supply perception and develop enterprise and relationships.
The complete examine; its Quantity II specializing in each the particular spending inside the locations, together with metrics together with passenger satisfaction, time spent ashore and forms of shore excursions; and related research courting again to 2001 can be found at www.F-CCA.com/Research.
33 Taking part Locations with Complete Cruise Tourism Expenditures (in $US Tens of millions)
Antigua & Barbuda ($89.0); Aruba ($133.2); The Bahamas ($654.8); Barbados ($83.5); Belize ($88.6); Bonaire ($33.4); British Virgin Islands ($85.7); Cayman Islands ($161.5); Colombia ($49.9); Costa Maya, Mexico ($187.9); Costa Rica ($32.2); Cozumel, Mexico ($483.1); Curaçao($93.3); Dominica ($20.9), Dominican Republic ($251.4); Ensenada, Mexico ($74.9); Grenada ($22.4); Guadeloupe ($46.1); Honduras ($180.4); Jamaica ($197.8); Key West ($55.4); Martinique ($42.2); Mazatlán, Mexico ($34.1); Panama ($114.0); Progreso, Mexico ($25.8); Puerto Rico ($201.9); St. Kitts & Nevis ($113.1); St. Lucia ($72.7); St. Maarten ($237.8); St. Vincent ($19.3); Trinidad ($5.4); Turks and Caicos ($116.1); and the US Virgin Islands ($258.1).
