SVG’s ‘record-breaking’ tourism performance projected to continue in Q2

Minister of Tourism Carlos James says the projections are that the record-breaking stay-over arrivals to St. Vincent and the Grenadines will continue into the second quarter of the year.

He said that around this time last year, in the lead up to the Cricket World Cup, hotels were at 75-80% capacity.

“I’m happy to report that the same period this year, almost every major hotel in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is at 100% occupancy for the carnival season,” the minister told a press conference in Kingstown.

At the same time, airlines have recorded “very positive preseason bookings ahead of the Vincymas period,” James said.

“And, of course, one airline has signalled the intention to add additional seats to the destination during that period.”

James said that Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) numbers show that in 2024, SVG had a record-breaking 102,766 stay-over visitors, a 27.2% increase on the previous year.

This was followed by Curacao, at 20.3%, and St. Martin, at 19.8%.

For the first quarter of 2025, the performance indicators show a 12.8% increase over the same period last year, James said.

“So, we’re now 12.8% up. There’s an uptick, and our local numbers are showing 2.9% but the CTO numbers are ranked us at 2.8%. There’s some variance there, but by and large, we are seeing an uptick in our first quarter performance,” James said.

He said the CTO data show that during the first quarter of 2025, 11 reporting destinations saw growth from the United States, with 13 destinations exceeding their 2019 pre-pandemic performance.

“In terms of the arrivals from the US source market for St. Vincent and the Grenadines, we saw the strongest growth of 74.8%, followed by Curacao at 23.5%, Barbados at 22% and Antigua at 12.4% as the best performances attracting visitors from the United States in the first quarter of 2025,” James said.

He said the numbers show that SVG had the “the strongest growth performance in the entire Caribbean region, at 74.8% and the second-ranked best-performing Caribbean island with projected growth of 23.5%,” the minister said.

“You can see the distance in terms of where we performed, we outperformed many of the other Caribbean destinations as it relates to the visitors coming to St. Vincent and the Grenadines and to the Caribbean region from the US source market.”

He said that of the 20 CTO destinations that reported their numbers, 13 destinations saw positive growth performances, with the strongest coming from Curacao at 16.6%, followed by SVG at 12.8%, Bermuda at 9.8%, and Dominica at 9.6% across all source markets.

“The destination’s performance, of course, is reflective of the transformation that is taking place within our country’s tourism. And I want to indicate key drivers for growth, including our tourism infrastructure build-out, a greater collaboration, as I said earlier, with stakeholders,” James said.

“And no doubt, the International Airport at Argyle had a significant role to play in what we’re seeing now in our transformation as a globally-competitive tourism destination”.