The num­ber of Cana­di­an vis­i­tors to the Caribbean fell by nine per cent to 1.67 mil­lion, while ar­rivals from Eu­rope dropped by an es­ti­mat­ed five per cent to 2.53 mil­lion dur­ing the first half of 2025, com­pared to the same pe­ri­od last year.

Data­base ad­min­is­tra­tor at the Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean Tourism Or­ga­ni­za­tion (CTO), Paul Gar­nes, said that in the case of Cana­da, this was due to soft­er de­mand tied to weak­er con­sumer con­fi­dence, high­er trav­el costs and cur­ren­cy events.

Speak­ing at the 2025 State of the Tourism In­dus­try Con­fer­ence tak­ing place in Bar­ba­dos through Fri­day, Gar­nes said that while Eu­rope re­mains an im­por­tant mar­ket to Caribbean tourism, de­mand is un­der pres­sure due to eco­nom­ic head­winds and/or stronger com­pe­ti­tion from oth­er des­ti­na­tions.

He said in­tra-Caribbean trav­el reg­is­tered 560,000 ar­rivals, rep­re­sent­ing 1.2 per cent growth.

“This con­tin­ues to sup­port re­gion­al re­silience,” he not­ed.

South Amer­i­ca was an­oth­er “bright spot”, he ob­served, with ar­rivals jump­ing more than 25 per cent, mov­ing from 790,000 to just un­der one mil­lion.

“And then in oth­er mar­kets—in­clud­ing Asia, Africa, and oth­ers—we saw sol­id dou­ble-dig­it growth, up 12 per cent to near­ly 3.8 mil­lion ar­rivals,” Gar­nes said.

He added that this shows the Caribbean is di­ver­si­fy­ing be­yond tra­di­tion­al source mar­kets.

Gar­nes said a clos­er look at Cana­da showed Cana­di­an out­bound trav­el took a hit in the first half of 2025, es­pe­cial­ly as the Unit­ed States tar­iffs, trade ten­sions and broad­er un­cer­tain­ty pushed many Cana­di­ans to­wards do­mes­tic trips and al­ter­na­tive des­ti­na­tions.

For the Caribbean, about 1.7 mil­lion Cana­di­an tourists vis­it­ed be­tween Jan­u­ary and June, down just over nine per cent from last year.

“And it pulled our re­cov­ery rate back from near­ly 86 per cent of 2019 lev­els in 2024 to 78 per cent this year. “

From Jan­u­ary to March, ar­rivals dropped sharply, down 12 per cent in Jan­u­ary, 15 per cent in Feb­ru­ary, and 10 per cent in March.

“These loss­es were even deep­er when com­pared to 2019, with win­ter months still 27 per cent to 31 per cent be­low pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els,” Gar­nes said. He not­ed that the down­ward trend con­tin­ued in April and May, though the con­trac­tions were small­er.

In the month of June, there was a re­bound as ar­rivals grew near­ly sev­en per cent year-on-year, even as that month was 11 per cent less than 2019 vol­ume.

“So when we look at Cana­di­an ar­rivals by des­ti­na­tion, the re­sults were very un­even,” said Gar­nes.

He stat­ed that of the 19 CTO re­port­ing des­ti­na­tions, on­ly eight record­ed growth in the first half of 2025.

“In­creas­es range from a small two per cent to a strong 36 per cent. Bermu­da, Cu­raçao and Aru­ba were the top-per­form­ing des­ti­na­tions for Cana­di­ans,” Gar­nes said. “Look­ing fur­ther back to 2019, on­ly six des­ti­na­tions have ful­ly re­cov­ered their pre-cri­sis vol­umes. For the rest, Cana­di­an ar­rivals are still be­low 2019 lev­els.”

Gar­nes said the Eu­ro­pean econ­o­my showed mod­er­ate growth in the first half of 2025, sup­port­ed by ser­vices and man­u­fac­tur­ing.

“In­fla­tion eased, em­ploy­ment held steady, and dis­cre­tionary spend­ing im­proved, fac­tors that helped sus­tain out­bound trav­el,” he said, not­ing that long-haul trav­el from Eu­rope is re­bound­ing, but des­ti­na­tion per­for­mance still de­pends heav­i­ly on how each mar­ket is re­cov­er­ing and where trav­ellers choose to go.

By the end of June, about 2.5 mil­lion Eu­ro­peans had vis­it­ed the Caribbean, down al­most five per cent from last year, and 17 per cent be­low pre-cri­sis lev­els.

“Month by month, ar­rivals were weak,” Gar­nes said, adding that the first quar­ter saw de­clines av­er­ag­ing around 7.5 per cent.

“April was the lone bright spot, with a very slight uptick, but May and June slipped again,” the CTO of­fi­cial re­vealed. “Over­all, quar­ter two fell by a small­er mar­gin, about two per cent. Com­pared to 2019, re­cov­ery rates vary wide­ly, from just un­der 70 per cent in Jan­u­ary to near­ly 93 per cent in May.”

Gar­nes said most Caribbean des­ti­na­tions saw de­clines in ar­rivals from Eu­rope.

“On­ly sev­en of the 19 re­port­ing des­ti­na­tions grew in the first half—led by Guyana, An­guil­la and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da. Growth ranged from just un­der two per cent to about 36 per cent,” Gar­nes said.

“So, look­ing at re­cov­ery since 2019, just six des­ti­na­tions have ful­ly sur­passed pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els, with gains from two to 79 per cent.”

Over­all, tourist ar­rivals to the Caribbean grew by 1.9% dur­ing the first half of 2025, de­spite soft­en­ing de­mand from North Amer­i­ca.

Gar­nes said that over­all, the re­gion still record­ed ar­rivals 6.1 per cent above 2019 (pre-pan­dem­ic) lev­els.

“Con­sid­er­ing tourist ar­rivals then, in the first half of the year 2025, the Caribbean tourism in­dus­try showed strong re­silience, con­tin­u­ing to grow de­spite ex­ter­nal chal­lenges,” Gar­nes said. —BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos (CMC)