Bermuda Travel Industry Grows for Third Year Running

It’s a three-peat for Bermuda. According to a report out this week from the Bermuda Tourism Authority, year-end visitor arrival statistics for 2018 confirm three straight years of economic comeback and uninterrupted growth for the island’s tourism trade.

“By every imaginable definition, Bermuda’s tourism industry is on a sustained path of recovery,” said Kevin Dallas, Bermuda Tourism Authority’s chief executive. “Our team put together a totally fresh tourism approach in 2014 and 2015. Stakeholders believed in our vision and helped build on the new foundation. That two-step process is the reason the country’s tourism has progressed so impressively.”

Back-to-back record-breaking years mean Bermuda’s streak of tourism growth is now 12 quarters long – dating back to January 2016.

The employment of Bermudians in the hotel industry, for example, is up 23 percent between 2016 and 2018, according to the government’s most recent quarterly statistics bulletin.

In 2018, total visitor arrivals surged to 770,683, an 11 percent increase over the previous year and a new record for Bermuda. Air leisure arrivals finished up 12 percent year-over-year and spending from this audience jumped 11 percent. The 203,697 vacationers to arrive by air in 2018 is the best performance in this category in 16 years. Back in 2002, 218,248 visitors flew to the island for leisure travel.

The steadily rising number of leisure travelers is driving greater direct spending into the local economy. With air visitors up 12 percent and cruise visitors higher by 16 percent in 2018, total leisure visitor spending surged 28 percent year-over-year.

Per person leisure spending fell slightly for air visitors in 2018 – not unexpected in the wake of America’s Cup – but because the amount of these travelers was sharply higher, total spending grew.

Source: South Florida Caribbean News