The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) has reported that tourist arrivals to the region in 2020 fell to just over 11 million, a decline of 65.5 percent from 32 million tourist visits in 2019.

The winter season saw an average level of arrivals compared to the previous year, according to the CTO, but came to a sudden stop in mid-March, while picking up again in June as the sector began to reopen.

Like stayover arrivals, cruise tourism was also buoyed by the performance of the first three months of 2020, particularly February, which saw a 4.2 percent rise in visits, the CTO reported. However, an overall drop of 20.1 percent for the first quarter was followed by no activity for the remainder of the year.

According to the 2021 Cruise Industry News Annual Report, the cruise capacity for 2020 was just above 2.8 million passengers, down from 10.7 million in 2019 and 10.2 million in 2018.

Overall, Caribbean cruise capacity has been growing parallel with cruise industry capacity growth and represented 38.7 percent of the global cruise capacity in 2018, according to the 2021 Cruise Industry News Annual Report which tracks the regional capacity since 1990.