Tourist arrivals rebound 38.5 percent in March
Published: June 22, 2010
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The territory’s tourism industry saw healthy growth this spring, according to a V.I. Bureau of Economic Research report released Monday.
The Virgin Islands had 38.5 percent more visitors this March than it did during March of last year. April showed more measured gains, with arrivals up 5.5 percent over April 2009.
“It’s looking better,” said Lisa Hamilton, executive director of the V.I. Hotel and Tourism Association. “We don’t expect everything to be coming back fully until next year, but it’s definitely a good sign.”
The territory’s tourism industry took a big hit in 2009, with arrivals down 7.9 percent from 2008, but numbers began to turn around at the end of the year. The territory had 4.5 percent more visitors in the fourth quarter of 2009 than it did during the same months of 2008.
That trend has continued this year, according to the bureau’s report.
In the first four months of 2010, 1.1 million people visited the territory — up 15.4 percent over the first four months of 2009. The majority of that growth was cruise passengers. Passenger arrivals were up 16.7 percent from January to April over January to April 2009.
“The continuing growth in visitor arrivals exemplifies the strengthening of the tourism industry,” the bureau’s report states.
Hamilton said that instability in competing destinations — including the swine flu outbreak and drug wars in Mexico — contributed to the territory’s strengthening arrival numbers.
“I’m sure we’ve seen some upswing from events in other areas,” she said.
After a big boom in March — when 337,458 visitors came to the territory, up from 260,000 in February — arrivals began to slow. In April, there were 233,403 visitors to the Virgin Islands, according to the bureau.
Total air arrivals to the territory grew by 29.6 percent in March, compared to the previous year, with St. Croix seeing the lion’s share of growth. Air arrivals were up 63.2 percent on St. Croix, while St. Thomas had 24 percent more visitors who came by plane.
In April — carnival month for St. Thomas — air arrivals stayed flat over the same month last year. St. Croix, however, had 12,312 tourists arrive by air in April, compared to 10,933 in April 2009 — a 12.7 percent increase.
Cruise ship arrivals to St. Croix grew rapidly this spring. In March, 19,491 cruise passengers came to the island’s shores, up from 6,266 during the same month last year. The trend continued in April, when 15,832 cruise passengers docked at St. Croix. No cruise boats came to the island in April 2009.
St. Thomas also had healthy growth in cruise passengers in March — up 33.7 percent over March 2009. In April, cruise arrivals saw more modest growth, with 7.2 percent more passengers coming to the island than did in April 2009.
Hotel numbers were mixed. Although two large hotels did not give their occupancy figures, the report estimated that, on average, 69.9 percent of hotel rooms across the territory were filled in March, compared to 61.9 percent in the same month of 2009. However, revenues were down 21.3 percent compared with March 2009, according to the report.
The report gives St. Croix a 51.2 percent occupancy rate in March, up from 41.2 percent in March 2009, and the St. Thomas-St. John district a 75.8 percent March occupancy rate, up from 68.89 percent in March 2009.
In April, the bureau reported a 57.7 percent hotel occupancy rate across the territory, a dip from the 58.6 percent rate in April 2009. Revenues, however, were reported to be up 23.8 percent over last year.
St. Croix’s occupancy rate grew slightly, from 35.9 percent in April 2009 to 38 percent in April 2010, according to the report. In the St. Thomas-St. John district, 63.9 percent of rooms, on average, were filled in April, compared to 66.3 percent in April 2009.
