Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett says the country is projected to record its 11th quarter of substantial tourism growth since the COVID-19 pandemic, both in terms of visitor arrivals to the island and earnings.

Bartlett, who was speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, December 12, disclosed that the island should record a total of 4,122,100 visitors for the period January to December.

This represents a 23.7 per cent increase when compared to the total number of visitors recorded last year.

“Of this number, 2,875,549 are expected to be stopover visitors, which would represent a 16 per cent
increase over the number of stopover arrivals recorded in 2022. Additionally, we expect to end the year with a total of 1,246,551 cruise passengers, which would represent a 46.1 per cent increase over the tally for 2022,” he outlined.

The tourism minister said the influx of visitors is expected to generate US$4.265 billion for 2023, which represents a 17.8 per cent increase compared to last year and a 17.2 per cent increase over the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

“Therefore, Madam Speaker, if we continue on our impressive growth trajectory. We will be
on track to surpass our projections of four million visitors and foreign exchange earnings of
US$4.1 billion by year-end,” he added.