Annual Economic and Financial Review -December 2018

2018 Annual Economic and Financial Review ST VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES

expansion in the number of stay-over visitors to 80,080, an improvement from the contraction of 4.3 per cent in the previous year. The rebound largely reflected growth in stay-over visitors from extra-regional source markets including the United States of America and Canada. As the largest source market with one-third of stay-over visitors, arrivals from the United States of America accelerated by 13.0 per cent from a low rate of 1.0 per cent in the previous year.

2018. Benefitting from direct flights from Air Canada Rouge during the winter season, stay- over arrivals from Canada also grew at a similarly remarkable rate of 13.0 per cent, from 9.9 per cent in 2017 and 5.2 in 2016. After two consecutive years of contraction, stay-over arrivals from the United Kingdom market rebounded at a rate of 9.2 per cent. The previous reductions were driven largely by the closure of Buccament Bay Resort in December 2017. Partially offsetting these expansions, were declines in stay-over arrivals from the Caribbean and the other less- established markets. Accounting for about a third of stay-over arrivals in the period, the number of stay-over visitors from the Caribbean fell by 4.5 per cent to 23,807, against the 2.2 per cent increase observed in the prior year. The growth in stay-over arrivals was accompanied by significant expansions in the cruise and yachting segments of visitors. Despite 19 fewer cruise calls to St Vincent and the Grenadines, growth was recorded in the number of cruise passengers (25.1 per cent) for 2018 to 217,876. This represented a marked deceleration from growth of 85.1 per cent in the previous year, when the sub-sector benefitted from the diversion related to the devastation caused to

This development was boosted by the introduction of non-stop direct flights by Caribbean Airlines from New York, and to a lesser extent, the entry of American Airlines from Miami in December 2018. Although Canada still accounts for a small share of the market, stay-over arrivals from this source market continued to register strong growth in

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