The federal government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is forecasting continued record-breaking stay-over arrivals for the second quarter of 2025, buoyed by sturdy resort occupancy and airline bookings in the course of the carnival season.
“I’m joyful to report that the identical interval this 12 months, virtually each main resort in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is at 100 per cent occupancy for the carnival season,” Tourism Minister Carlos James informed a information convention. He famous that round this time final 12 months, within the lead-up to the Cricket World Cup, inns had been working at 75 to 80 % capability.
James added that airways have reported “very optimistic preseason bookings forward of the Vincymas interval … and, in fact, one airline has signalled the intention so as to add extra seats to the vacation spot throughout that interval.”
In accordance with figures from the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Group (CTO), St. Vincent and the Grenadines welcomed a file 102,766 stay-over guests in 2024 — a 27.2% enhance in comparison with the earlier 12 months.
James stated efficiency indicators for the primary quarter of 2025 confirmed a 12.8% enhance over the identical interval in 2024.
“So, we’re now 12.8 per cent up. There’s an uptick, and our native numbers are exhibiting 2.9 per cent, however the CTO numbers ranked us at 2.8 per cent. There’s some variance there, however by and huge, we’re seeing an uptick in our first quarter efficiency,” he stated.
The CTO information additionally indicated sturdy development from the U.S. supply market. Eleven reporting locations noticed will increase in U.S. guests, with 13 locations surpassing their 2019 pre-pandemic ranges.
“When it comes to the arrivals from the US supply marketplace for St. Vincent and the Grenadines, we noticed the strongest development of 74.8 per cent, adopted by Curacao at 23.5 per cent, Barbados at 22 per cent and Antigua at 12.4 per cent as one of the best performances attracting guests from america within the first quarter of 2025,” James stated.
He added that St. Vincent and the Grenadines confirmed “the strongest development efficiency in the whole Caribbean area at 75 4.8 per cent” and was “the second-ranked best-performing Caribbean island with projected development of 23.5 per cent.”
“You possibly can see the gap by way of the place we carried out, we outperformed lots of the different Caribbean locations because it pertains to the guests coming to St. Vincent and the Grenadines and to the Caribbean area from the US supply market,” James stated.
Out of 20 CTO locations that reported statistics, 13 confirmed optimistic development throughout all supply markets. Curacao led with 16.6%, adopted by St. Vincent and the Grenadines at 12.8%, Bermuda at 9.8%, and Dominica at 9.6%.
“The vacation spot’s efficiency, in fact, is reflective of the transformation that’s happening inside our nation’s tourism. And I need to point out key drivers for development, together with our tourism infrastructure build-out, a larger collaboration, as I stated earlier, with stakeholders,” James stated.
“And little question, the Worldwide Airport at Argyle had a major function to play in what we’re seeing now in our transformation as a globally-competitive tourism vacation spot,” he added.
