An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Re­port­ing from St John’s, An­tigua

Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains one of the Caribbean’s most avi­a­tion-de­pen­dent tourism mar­kets, with al­most half of all vis­i­tors en­ter­ing the coun­try through con­nect­ing flights rather than di­rect ser­vices, even as re­gion­al trav­el growth slows sharply and com­pe­ti­tion for vis­i­tors in­ten­si­fies.

The find­ings were con­tained in the 2026 Caribbean Trav­el Trends Re­port pre­pared by Amadeus us­ing its Des­ti­na­tion In­sights plat­form and

pre­sent­ed on Tues­day dur­ing a closed-door meet­ing host­ed by the Caribbean Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion at San­dals Grande An­tigua Re­sort & Spa.

The re­port paint­ed a mixed pic­ture for the Caribbean tourism sec­tor, high­light­ing slow­ing over­all growth, in­creas­ing pres­sure on des­ti­na­tions to di­ver­si­fy source mar­kets, and a grow­ing de­pen­dence on Latin Amer­i­can trav­ellers to sup­port de­mand dur­ing slow­er tourism pe­ri­ods.

For T&T, the re­port un­der­scored the coun­try’s heavy re­liance on hub-based trav­el and re­gion­al con­nec­tions.

Across the Caribbean, 83 per cent of tourist ar­rivals reach des­ti­na­tions on di­rect flights, re­flect­ing what the re­port de­scribed as the re­gion’s gen­er­al­ly strong point-to-point con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

How­ev­er, Amadeus said that the re­gion­al av­er­age masks sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences be­tween des­ti­na­tions.

“Sec­ond-tier des­ti­na­tions re­ly far more heav­i­ly on in­di­rect con­nec­tiv­i­ty and hub-based trav­el,” the re­port stat­ed.

This coun­try record­ed the high­est de­pen­dence on trans­fer traf­fic in the Caribbean, with 47 per cent of ar­rivals en­ter­ing through con­nect­ing flights. Guyana fol­lowed at 42 per cent while the Cay­man Is­lands stood at 32 per cent.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, these des­ti­na­tions de­pend heav­i­ly on a com­bi­na­tion of in­tra-Caribbean air links and ma­jor Unit­ed States hubs to main­tain tourism de­mand.

The re­port con­trast­ed that po­si­tion with top-tier Caribbean tourism mar­kets such as Aru­ba and Puer­to Ri­co, where 91 per cent of ar­rivals come through di­rect flights sup­port­ed by more di­ver­si­fied in­ter­na­tion­al route net­works.

Amadeus said the fig­ures demon­strate how crit­i­cal ma­jor Caribbean and North Amer­i­can avi­a­tion hubs re­main, not on­ly for the larg­er des­ti­na­tions them­selves but al­so for sec­ondary tourism mar­kets de­pen­dent on on­ward con­nec­tions.

T&T among re­gion’s most sta­ble mar­kets

De­spite its re­liance on con­nect­ing traf­fic, Trinidad and To­ba­go ranked among the Caribbean’s least sea­son­al tourism des­ti­na­tions.

The re­port’s sea­son­al­i­ty in­dex, which mea­sures fluc­tu­a­tions in tourism de­mand through­out the year, placed T&T at 43. On­ly Cu­raçao at 21, Guyana at 25, Saint Lu­cia at 29, and Aru­ba at 24 record­ed low­er scores.

By com­par­i­son, Bar­ba­dos record­ed a sea­son­al­i­ty in­dex of 228, the US Vir­gin Is­lands 181, and Guade­loupe 171, in­di­cat­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly larg­er swings be­tween high and low tourism pe­ri­ods.

The re­port sug­gest­ed that low­er sea­son­al­i­ty scores in­di­cate stronger year-round trav­el de­mand and re­duced de­pen­dence on tra­di­tion­al peak

tourism win­dows.

Amadeus high­light­ed Cu­raçao as one of the Caribbean’s strongest ex­am­ples of suc­cess­ful sea­son­al­i­ty man­age­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, Cu­raçao has man­aged to main­tain rel­a­tive­ly sta­ble de­mand through­out the year be­cause of di­ver­si­fied source

mar­kets, strong South Amer­i­can con­nec­tiv­i­ty, and des­ti­na­tion brand­ing that ap­peals out­side tra­di­tion­al win­ter trav­el pe­ri­ods.

“Cu­raçao’s per­for­mance demon­strates how mar­ket di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly to­ward South Amer­i­ca, con­sis­tent air con­nec­tiv­i­ty, and clear des­ti­na­tion po­si­tion­ing can sub­stan­tial­ly re­duce de­pen­dence on high sea­son de­mand alone,” the re­port stat­ed.

The re­port added that sev­er­al Caribbean des­ti­na­tions with mid­dle-range sea­son­al­i­ty pro­files could im­prove year-round tourism per­for­mance by

ap­ply­ing sim­i­lar strate­gies, es­pe­cial­ly through stronger en­gage­ment with South Amer­i­can trav­ellers.

Amadeus re­peat­ed­ly iden­ti­fied Latin Amer­i­ca as one of the re­gion’s biggest op­por­tu­ni­ties for sus­tain­ing growth as trav­el de­mand from sev­er­al tra­di­tion­al mar­kets be­gins to weak­en.

Caribbean growth los­es mo­men­tum

The re­port showed that over­seas trav­el de­mand to the Caribbean grew by just one per cent be­tween April 2025 and March 2026.

That marked a ma­jor slow­down from the post-pan­dem­ic re­bound years when de­mand in­creased by 21 per cent in 2023 and eight per cent in 2024.

Amadeus said the slow­down sig­nals that the re­gion’s re­cov­ery-dri­ven growth cy­cle is sta­bil­is­ing and that des­ti­na­tions will now need in­creas­ing­ly tar­get­ted strate­gies to re­main com­pet­i­tive.

“This mod­er­a­tion sug­gests that the post-re­cov­ery mo­men­tum is sta­bil­is­ing, in­creas­ing the im­por­tance of da­ta-dri­ven and high­ly tar­get­ted mar­ket­ing strate­gies to sus­tain growth,” the re­port stat­ed.

The re­port said Latin Amer­i­can mar­kets are emerg­ing as one of the Caribbean’s most strate­gi­cal­ly im­por­tant op­por­tu­ni­ties be­cause of their con­tin­ued year-on-year ex­pan­sion at a time when some tra­di­tion­al long-haul mar­kets are slow­ing.

“De­mand from these mar­kets con­tin­ues to grow con­sis­tent­ly year over year, in con­trast to signs of slow­down ob­served across sev­er­al

tra­di­tion­al long-haul mar­kets.”

Amadeus al­so point­ed to a grow­ing shift in trav­eller be­hav­iour from Latin Amer­i­ca, with stronger de­mand now emerg­ing in pre­mi­um trav­el

seg­ments.

The re­port stat­ed that trav­ellers from Latin Amer­i­ca are in­creas­ing­ly search­ing and book­ing high­er-end cab­in class­es, sug­gest­ing a grow­ing

ap­petite for pre­mi­um Caribbean trav­el ex­pe­ri­ences.

“This trend points to a grow­ing ap­petite for high­er-val­ue trav­el from the re­gion, re­in­forc­ing Latin Amer­i­ca’s role as a strate­gi­cal­ly im­por­tant source mar­ket for the Caribbean,” the re­port stat­ed.

The re­port fur­ther not­ed that the Caribbean’s re­silience in­creas­ing­ly de­pends on un­der­stand­ing the dis­tinct trav­el pro­files of vis­i­tors across dif­fer­ent des­ti­na­tions.

“Each des­ti­na­tion is char­ac­terised by a dis­tinct mix of vis­i­tors, un­der­lin­ing the im­por­tance of deeply un­der­stand­ing trav­eller seg­ments.”

Amadeus said des­ti­na­tions us­ing trav­el in­tent da­ta and book­ing trends more ef­fec­tive­ly would be bet­ter po­si­tioned to tar­get trav­ellers at key de­ci­sion-mak­ing stages.

“Lever­ag­ing these in­sights al­lows des­ti­na­tions to de­liv­er the right mes­sages to the right au­di­ences at key mo­ments in the trav­el plan­ning

cy­cle.”

The re­port stat­ed that tourism au­thor­i­ties can im­prove mar­ket­ing ef­fi­cien­cy by align­ing ad­ver­tis­ing cam­paigns with ori­gin-spe­cif­ic search-to-book win­dows and tar­get­ing trav­ellers across so­cial me­dia and dig­i­tal con­tent plat­forms.

South Amer­i­ca dri­ving low-sea­son de­mand

The re­port iden­ti­fied South Amer­i­ca as in­creas­ing­ly crit­i­cal to sus­tain­ing tourism de­mand dur­ing the Caribbean’s weak­er trav­el pe­ri­ods.

Amadeus in­di­cat­ed that the low-sea­son tourism in the Caribbean is now heav­i­ly re­liant on South Amer­i­can trav­ellers who con­tin­ue to trav­el dur­ing months when de­mand from North Amer­i­can and Eu­ro­pean mar­kets typ­i­cal­ly weak­en.

Brazil emerged as the fastest-grow­ing low-sea­son source mar­ket with de­mand in­creas­ing by 60 per cent. Colom­bia record­ed a 26 per cent in­crease in low-sea­son de­mand and was iden­ti­fied as the largest South Amer­i­can source mar­ket by share.

“These trends un­der­line the im­por­tance of South Amer­i­ca in help­ing des­ti­na­tions flat­ten sea­son­al­i­ty curves and dri­ve more con­sis­tent year-round tourism per­for­mance,” the re­port stat­ed.

Amadeus said at­tract­ing more South Amer­i­can trav­ellers dur­ing tra­di­tion­al­ly weak­er months presents one of the clear­est op­por­tu­ni­ties for Caribbean des­ti­na­tions to im­prove ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy and rev­enues.

Ho­tel per­for­mance fig­ures con­tained in the re­port high­light­ed the ex­tent of the sea­son­al rev­enue gap across the re­gion.

Dur­ing the low sea­son be­tween Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber 2025, Caribbean

ho­tels record­ed an av­er­age dai­ly room rate of US$224 and an av­er­age rev­enue per avail­able room, or RevPAR, of US$125. Al­though RevPAR in­creased by two per cent year-on-year, Amadeus said over­all per­for­mance dur­ing the low sea­son re­mained sig­nif­i­cant­ly be­low peak-pe­ri­od lev­els.

The re­port not­ed that fur­ther op­ti­mi­sa­tion re­mains pos­si­ble, par­tic­u­lar­ly through more tar­get­ed mar­ket­ing to South Amer­i­can trav­ellers who show a stronger will­ing­ness to trav­el dur­ing those pe­ri­ods.

Hol­i­day trav­el still dom­i­nates

While low-sea­son per­for­mance re­mains un­der pres­sure, the re­port showed that Caribbean ho­tel rev­enues strength­ened sig­nif­i­cant­ly dur­ing the high sea­son.

Be­tween Ju­ly and Au­gust 2025, av­er­age RevPAR in­creased to US$183 per night, rep­re­sent­ing a 5.2 per cent year-on-year in­crease. That growth was sup­port­ed by a high­er av­er­age dai­ly room rate of US$271.

The strongest rev­enue per­for­mance was record­ed dur­ing the end-of-year hol­i­day pe­ri­od when tourist overnight stays surged sharply across the re­gion.

Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, av­er­age RevPAR climbed to US$283 across Caribbean des­ti­na­tions.

The re­port said the fig­ures demon­strate the con­tin­ued dom­i­nance of hol­i­day trav­el de­mand in dri­ving tourism rev­enues across the re­gion.

Amadeus al­so stressed that the Caribbean con­tin­ues to at­tract a broad mix of trav­eller types, which it de­scribed as an im­por­tant fac­tor in des­ti­na­tion re­silience.

The re­port stat­ed that un­der­stand­ing those vis­i­tor pro­files will be­come in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant as des­ti­na­tions com­pete more ag­gres­sive­ly for slow­er-grow­ing glob­al trav­el de­mand.