Jamaica-based travel company Leisure for Pleasure Holidays and Tours Ltd has encouraged more Jamaicans to visit Cuba on its weekly cruises as it presented the first prize in a competition staged in association with the Jamaica Observer to a Kingston woman.

Cruise passenger visits to the USVI grew by 4.9 percent last year, with a total of 1,998,579 cruise passengers. That was among the largest improvements of any Caribbean destination with complete annual reporting from 2013.

Royal Caribbean International said the Independence of the Seas will spend its first summer in the Caribbean in 2015, returning from deployment in Europe. The ship will sail alternating seven-day eastern and western Caribbean itineraries from Fort Lauderdale.

The arrival of a spectacular four-mast sail boat in Cayman Brac on Friday could herald the start of a new era of cruise tourism for the island. Without the amenities or the infrastructure to adequately handle full-size cruise ships, tourism chiefs on the Brac hope to tap into a niche market of smaller touring vessels.