The months of October to December 2018 produced arrivals of 22,178 from all source markets, representing 35.3 % of total stay-over arrivals for the year which stood at 62, 828. This is an increase of 95% over the same period in 2017. Increases were registered at 91%, 113% and 78% respectively during the last three months of the year compared to 2017.
The quarter also represents a marginal increase of 0.9% over the same period in 2016. November 2018 was the first month to show an increase over the same month in 2016, with an increase of 15.6 % over November 2016. Arrivals amounted to 5,271 which is the highest arrivals for that month over the past 12 years of reported data, representing a record for the destination in that regard. December figures showed that the upswing continued, registering a 6.7 % increase over December 2016 arrivals.
The year-end figure of 62, 828 visitor arrivals, represents a 13% decline over 2017 figures of 72, 228. This performance surpassed the projections given for countries which had suffered a natural disaster of the magnitude of Hurricane Maria during the previous year, as expected declines are normally in the vicinity of 30%. In addition, the 2018 numbers represent only a 20% decline over 2016 arrivals which is also of significance.
The focus of DDA’s marketing and product development efforts for the past year was to provide current information on available product and communicate pertinent updates to all relevant publics.
Timely updates on the destination’s positive recovery efforts and stories of optimism were communicated to all relevant publics, internal and external to Dominica. Vicky Chandler, DDA’s Destination Marketing Manager indicates “We embarked on an aggressive communications strategy which saw the development of a separate website specific to destination updates; awareness and discount campaigns and a concerted effort in our Press outreach globally, hosting media from all of our main source markets and communicating outward via social, digital and print media to potential consumers as well as to our travel trade network.”
The cruise season was modified as a result of the passage of Hurricane Maria resulting in an 88% decline in arrivals in the first 6 months of 2018 vs same period in 2017. However, there was a major improvement in cruise arrivals during the last two (2) months of the year. The destination also recorded Cruise visitor arrivals in July, August, & September for the first time in 5 years which contributed to a total of 134,469 arrivals in 2018, a 14.4% decline over 2017 (154,040).”
Minister for Tourism and Culture, Hon. Robert Tonge opines, “These figures are the direct result of the cumulative efforts of Team Dominica in many different aspects of the destination’s recovery. The government’s investment in site rehabilitation and enhancements along with the celebratory season which started with the exciting WCMF in October, through to Reunion and the 40th Anniversary of Independence in November were key drivers of interest among our loyal Diaspora market and friends of Dominica. The recorded figures augur well for the future of the industry and the people of Dominica on the whole.”
For more information on Dominica, contact Discover Dominica Authority at 767 448 2045. Or, visit Dominica’s official website: www.DiscoverDominica.com, see Dominica’s updates on the tourism sector post Hurricane Maria: www.dominicaupdate.com, follow Dominica on Twitter and Facebook and take a look at our videos on YouTube.
With the worse minister ever in the entire world, do we really expect any growth? Rub is a failure, he sat there and allowed over twelve hundred stay over medi tourist to leave Dominica and go to Barbados. Shameful.
The statistics that are being presented is fraudulent and do not reflect the true performance of the tourism market. Here is the tourism figures below from 2016 to September 2018:
2016 2017 2018
Total Arrivals 382,576 252,256 74,243
Stay Over 91,706 82,413 39,463
Clearly the performance of the sector have been dismal, an extremely poor performance. This is an embarrassment for the sector and the players and managers need to give account of their stewardship. We are going to have the worst year ever in the tourism sector, not even 2017 the maria year was that bad. This statistics was obtained from ECCB.
OK good show.
1. How many of these visitors came from the Republic of Haiti and the Dominican Republic?
2. How many of these visitors came from Guyana, Trinidad, St Lucia, Jamaica?
3. How many of these visitors are staying in Picard?
4. How many of these Haitians have since returned to Haiti?
5. How many of these Haitians have travelled to Martinique, Guadeloupe, and other destinations legally from Dominica
On the question of stay over visitors; how many have stayed in properties approved for letting by the DDA/ DHTA?
There is no doubt an increase in cruise ship calls and cruise passenger arrivals
the most significant performance is the yachting sector particularly in the Portsmouth area where there has been an influx of yachts both in 2017 – 2018 and I believe that based on my observations figure has increased for the 2018 – 2019 season
Potentially, Dominica should be a tourism magnet. A good comparison would be to compare tourism statistics of Dominica with those of its neighboring OECS counterparts. Those numbers of Dominica pale miserably with those of tiny St. Kitts and of Antigua, St. Lucia, Grenada and even St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Every ministry, every sector of the economy is grossly underperforming. Tourism, manufacturing, agriculture and every other local industry are abysmal failures . The Sherrie-led regime policies are crippling the economy, rendering it regressive.
95% increase of virtually nothing is still very little! But the government of DA is happy with very little.
This is ok considering we’re still in recovery mode, but healthy tourism stats rely on stay over visitors. I can’t wait for the Kepinsky and other 5 star hotels to open as promised to reap better stay over stats. With that I would still super-emphasize and invest heavily in Agriculture by all means necessary. Since we just can’t compete with those sandy beach destinations, have you explored or contacted Eco travel prompters such as Collette at Collette.com? If I were you I’d pay them to list Nature Isle Dominica as permanent destination. It’s worth the CBI investment to advertise aggressively.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Are we boasting of those figures? Thats pathetic! If you compare yourself with you what do go expect? Let us compare those figures with the smaller St Kitts or Antigua or even St Vincent. If you do you will realize that this are two weeks figures ad we making a bug deal of it. Looking at those figures I wild say to the I sister and his clan get up, get out and let Dominica breathe. Dominica had much more to offer tourists than any of the OECS islands yet we are doing a woeful job at attracting tourist and the infrastructure necessary to attract and make them return. I believe u Skerritt and his goons disappear and let Dominica breathe we will take bugger steps to catching up with the other islands.
This is a start, but the report falls short in terms of both quality and quantity as a basis for making more meaningful decisions for the future of Dominica’s tourism industry. See the link below on St. Lucia’s tourist arrivals. This is what we would like to see – a properly tabulated document showing effective comparisons.
http://www.caribbeanhotelandtourism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/St.-Lucia-201707-Year-to-date-Stay-Over-Arrivals.pdf
Boy you and Francisco all will have to win an election eh pal, just win one…oh I know, they won’t let you. Excuses excuses. The other islands you mention are not in recovery from a devastating event are they. With this attitude I wouldn’t trust you with running a miserly village council, let alone a whole island.