Dominica has seen an increase in visitor number of almost 20 per cent for the first three months of 2017 when compared to the same period last year.
The 19.5 per cent increase can be attributed to improved flight connections, robust marketing campaigns and brand affinity partnerships, which have raised the profile and awareness of Dominica in the UK market.
A key pull for the UK market was the launch of the same day connection from London to Dominica via Antigua in 2016.
This meant that British travellers could leave the UK at 10:30 and be in Dominica with a rum punch in their hand by 16:35 local time.
Visibility of Dominica in the trade rose with a successful campaign in partnership with Expedia UK in autumn 2016.
An affinity campaign with Salomon, Sport Shoes, Wanderlust and Inntravel in 2016 helped to raise awareness of Dominica to UK adventure and nature travellers with a love of exploring new places.
Year-on-year visitor increases were also seen from other markets.
France saw a 19.9 growth, closely followed by Canada at 10.8 per cent increase and the US with a 6.4 per cent increase.
Colin Piper, chief executive, Discover Dominica Authority, said: “We are thrilled to see such big spikes in visitor arrivals compared to last year.
“Faster access to the island with the same day connectivity has certainly made Dominica a more attractive proposition to UK visitors and further activity with the trade has helped to push sales.
“We hope to continue to raise our UK visitor figures and share the beauty of our Nature Island.”
Original story HERE
Are you watching something, or your’e showing me something?
Hey you on the stone! Take your thong/strings to MIAMI BEACH, Nuh!
The minister of tourism is just trying to fool Dominican’s. When you talk about visitor arrivals please be honest and tell us what percentage of them are cruise ship visitors, what percentage are stay over visitors. After the first quarter in any given year there’s NO cruise visitors,and that’s the sector which bring’s most visitors to the island.
Mr. Piper I would like to know the comparison of the tourism revenues generated in the same period.
Then we will get a better understanding of the performance of the sector in first quarter 2017 vs 1st quarter of 2016.
All these percentages don’t tell much.Bear with me here.If 12 persons are our tourism arrivals and it goes to 18 then that is a 50% increase in tourism arrivals.So to tell of a 50% increase sounds like an astronomical increase but in real terms and numbers that ain’t much.Therefore providing absolutely numbers will tell the true picture considering that it was reported that tourism arrivals had gone down in the recent past
Look, as bad as our tourism product has been lately, I – a HUGE critic of the incompetent tourism minister- would still applaud some type of positive growth. Its about time they start moving things in the right direction!