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2018 Annual Economic and Financial Review ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA
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Eastern Caribbean Central Bank
23.1 per cent in 2017. The contribution of the
sector to real GDP inched up to 13.7 per cent
from 12.2 per cent in 2017, maintaining its
status as the second largest contributor to
GDP. Construction activity was driven by
both public and private sector investments.
Public sector projects included the
Government
Affordable
Housing
Development, repairs and enhancements to
government administrative offices and
schools, dredging of the Heritage Quay Pier,
and the road infrastructure project funded with
the United Kingdom Caribbean Infrastructure
Fund (UK- CIF). Construction activity in the
private sector included capital investments in
hotel projects such as Pearns Point, Non Such
Bay, Royalton, Hodges Bay Resort and Spa,
Jumby Bay, and Galley Bay Resort and Spa,
among others. The robust activity in the
construction sector, increased the demand for
sand and stones aggregates, leading to a
22.0 per cent expansion in the mining and
quarrying sector.
The hotels and restaurants sector, a proxy for
the tourism industry, grew by an estimated
5.2 per cent reversing the contraction of
2.0 per cent recorded in 2017.
The hotels and restaurants sector contribution
to GDP fell slightly to 13.5 per cent from
13.7 per cent in 2017. For the second
consecutive year, Antigua and Barbuda
recorded total visitor numbers in excess of one
million (1.0m). Total visitor arrivals
increased by 7.5 per cent to 1.1m,
contributing to a 7.6 per cent surge in visitor
expenditure to $1,616.9m. Cruise passenger
arrivals, which accounted for 74.1 per cent of
the total, rose by 7.4 per cent to 825,420 in
2018. This was mainly attributable to visits of
larger capacity ships, which was made
possible by the improvement in the cruise port
infrastructure, notwithstanding the decline in
the number of cruise ship calls to 379 from
424 in 2017. There was also solid growth in
the number of stay over arrivals, which
increased by 8.8 per cent to 268,949, relative
to 2017. This outturn was largely due to the
combined effect of increased airlift by
American Airlines, Delta, Thomas Cook, Air