Expanded Air Links Boost Cayman Islands Travel as Cruise Declines

The country’s first-half 2024 visitors represent a 6.5 percent year-over-year increase; only the six-month periods in 2018 and 2019 produced higher visitor numbers, said CIDOT officials. U.S. visitors accounted for the lion’s share of first-half 2024 travelers at 84 percent, while Canadian visitors accounted for 6.9. percent of arrivals.

While overall visitor numbers climbed higher, the Cayman Islands’ cruise ship visitors, for years among the highest for Caribbean nations, declined steeply to the lowest level in over two decades, according to Kenneth Bryan, the country’s minister of tourism.

Between January and June of this year, the Cayman Islands hosted 634,212 cruise ship visitors, down 14.6 percent compared with the first six months of 2023, when the country welcomed 742,553 shipboard travelers.

The Cayman Islands’ 2024 first-half passengers arrived aboard 197 cruise ships calling during the first six months of 2024, 50 fewer than the same period in 2023.

For all of 2023, the Cayman Islands hosted 1.1 million cruise ship visitors, the “lowest passenger arrivals in over two decades” Bryan said in comments to Cayman legislators reported by the Cayman Compass.

The Cayman Islands recorded 1.8 million cruise passengers In pre-pandemic 2019, according to Caribbean Tourism Organization data.

In a 2019 public referendum, the country’s citizens voted down a $200 million cruise ship pier project. Since then, cruise ships calling at Cayman have continued to transport passengers ashore via tender boats.

As a result, cruise lines are shifting ever-larger vessels that require fixed piers away from the destination, a scenario Bryan predicted earlier.

Landing Spot

The Cayman government is now planning a public vote by the end of the year on a plan to build new cruise piers. Meanwhile, the country’s expanding airline links and growing hotel and resort base are fueling a new visitor growth avenue.

The Cayman Islands hosted 418 flights in June of this year, 38 more than June 2023, according to International Air Transport Association (IATA) statistics. The 18 percent increase in June 2024 inbound flights represents an additional 50,817 seats over last June.

This year’s opening of the 282-room Hotel Indigo Grand Cayman has increased the island’s hotel and resort stock to 8,060 rooms, which Bryan called a “significant milestone.”

With the expanded hotel base has come an increase in average daily rate, which CIDOT officials said was up 16.9 percent year-over-year compared with the first half of 2023.

The Cayman Islands is poised to add another 600 hotel rooms in the coming years according to CIDOT, including the Grand Hyatt Grand Cayman Hotel & Residences and Kailani, a Curio Collection by Hilton resort, both scheduled to open in 2025.

Air Access

Several carriers have introduced expanded service to the Cayman Islands, including American Airlines, which added a Saturday summer flight to its daily service from Dallas. JetBlue will add a second flight from Boston on Mondays beginning to its weekly Saturday flights beginning October 28.

Sun Country Airlines will offer twice-weekly flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul between December 20 and April 12, 2025. Air capacity from Toronto, Canada has “effectively doubled” with both Air Canada and JetBlue offering twice-weekly flights between April and October, said Bryan.

“The increased capacity of our room stock supports our drive for more airlift into the destination as we now have the ability to accommodate more visitors,” said Rosa Harris, CIDOT’s director.

Added Harris, “Our goal is to develop new markets and flatten our seasonality, while maintaining quality experiences for visitors and residents. Increased accommodation and airlift are crucial to achieving this goal.”