As the 2023/2024 cruise sea­son came to a close on Wednes­day, the Min­istry of Tourism said to­tal ex­pen­di­ture by pas­sen­gers to T&T was over $48 mil­lion. 

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the min­istry said for Trinidad, in­creased rev­enue was gen­er­at­ed at the var­i­ous ports, for tour op­er­a­tors, taxi dri­vers, craft ven­dors and lo­cal busi­ness­es.  

Based on avail­able da­ta gath­ered by Tourism Trinidad’s vis­i­tor sur­veys, the av­er­age vis­i­tor spend was es­ti­mat­ed at USD$431 per per­son, equat­ing to USD$3,356,193 (TT$22,822,112). Ac­cord­ing to a sur­vey con­duct­ed by a lo­cal agency, the av­er­age spend on tours per per­son was a fur­ther USD$25, with 21,049 per­sons dis­em­bark­ing for or­gan­ised tours, equat­ing to USD$526,225 (TT$3,578,330). 

As it per­tains to To­ba­go, the To­ba­go Tourism Agency,  es­ti­mat­ed spend per pas­sen­ger was USD$26 to­talling USD$2,587,728 (TT$17,596,550) for the sea­son.  

It said 26,890 pas­sen­gers went on or­gan­ised tours, with an av­er­age ex­pen­di­ture of US$25 per per­son amount­ing to USD$672,250 (TT$4,571,300). 

Pas­sen­ger de­mo­graph­ics  

The min­istry said the ma­jor­i­ty of pas­sen­gers hailed from the Unit­ed States, con­sti­tut­ing a sig­nif­i­cant 70 per cent of the to­tal ar­rivals, fol­lowed by Cana­da with nine per cent and France with sev­en per cent.  

Oth­er no­table con­trib­u­tors, it said in­clude the Unit­ed King­dom with four per cent, Uruguay with three per cent, and the Rest of the World ac­count­ing for six per cent.  

The min­istry not­ed that rel­a­tive­ly small­er num­bers were record­ed from the Caribbean, Ger­many, and oth­er re­gions at one per cent.  

“The dom­i­nance of the Unit­ed States in cruise pas­sen­ger ar­rivals to T&T is most­ly due to our is­lands of­fer­ing unique at­trac­tions and ex­pe­ri­ences that ap­peal to Amer­i­can tourists, such as our di­verse cul­tur­al her­itage, fes­ti­vals, and nat­ur­al beau­ty.

“More­over, mar­ket­ing ef­forts and strate­gic part­ner­ships be­tween cruise lines and lo­cal tourism au­thor­i­ties have en­hanced the des­ti­na­tion’s vis­i­bil­i­ty and at­trac­tive­ness to Amer­i­can trav­ellers, re­sult­ing in a sub­stan­tial in­flux of pas­sen­gers from this mar­ket. The da­ta al­so shows a no­table pres­ence of Cana­di­an tourists, com­pris­ing nine per cent of the to­tal ar­rivals,” the re­lease fur­ther stat­ed. 

Di­rect em­ploy­ment  

The min­istry said di­rect em­ploy­ment was al­so cre­at­ed for 30 vis­i­tor am­bas­sadors for the sea­son.  

It said the am­bas­sadors were sta­tioned at key points be­tween the Cruise Ship Com­plex and the Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral and they were tasked with pro­vid­ing hos­pi­tal­i­ty and tour as­sis­tance to pas­sen­gers who may have opt­ed to tour or shop on their own. 

Al­so, the min­istry said proac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in trade events and col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts with cruise lines re­sult­ed in in­creased cruise calls and a wider reach for T&T.  

Min­istry of­fi­cials and in­dus­try stake­hold­ers, led by Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell at­tend­ed the Flori­da-Caribbean Cruise As­so­ci­a­tion (FC­CA) con­fer­ences in 2022 and 2023 and held dis­cus­sions with sev­er­al cruise lines. This stim­u­lat­ed their in­ter­est in con­duct­ing busi­ness with the coun­try which re­sult­ed in in­creased cruise calls.  

Mitchell said, “This suc­cess­ful sea­son re­flects our deep com­mit­ment to en­hanc­ing T&T’s po­si­tion as a pre­mier cruise des­ti­na­tion. We’re ex­treme­ly pleased with the pos­i­tive re­sponse and will con­tin­ue to in­no­vate to at­tract even more vis­i­tors in the fu­ture.”