To­ba­go pulled in over 50,000 cruise ship pas­sen­gers this sea­son—one of the is­land’s busiest in re­cent years.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Di­vi­sion of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties, and Trans­porta­tion to­day, 41 cruise ships docked at the Scar­bor­ough port be­fore the sea­son closed on April 15.

Tourism Sec­re­tary Tashia Bur­ris said the is­land is now gain­ing ground as a se­ri­ous stop for cruise tourism.

“This sea­son re­flects our com­mit­ment to en­hanc­ing To­ba­go’s ap­peal as a pre­mi­um cruise des­ti­na­tion,” Bur­ris said. “The pres­ence of res­i­den­tial ships, first-time callers, and the en­thu­si­as­tic re­sponse to our cul­tur­al show­cas­es all sig­nal a bright and promis­ing fu­ture for cruise tourism on the is­land.”

For the first time, the Di­vi­sion re­port­ed that three res­i­den­tial cruise ships—The World, Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic Ori­on, and Vil­la Vie Odyssey—vis­it­ed To­ba­go, with two stay­ing overnight.

To­ba­go al­so wel­comed four ves­sels mak­ing their first-ever stop on the is­land: Ex­ploris I, Ex­plo­ra II, Aza­ma­ra, and Vil­la Vie Odyssey.

The Di­vi­sion stat­ed that a to­tal of 15,248 cruise pas­sen­gers took part in lo­cal tours—vis­it­ing eco-sites, his­tor­i­cal land­marks, cul­tur­al at­trac­tions, and sam­pling lo­cal cui­sine.

One of the high­lights, ac­cord­ing to the Di­vi­sion, was a live per­for­mance by the To­ba­go Per­form­ing Arts Com­pa­ny aboard The World, which re­ceived praise from both pas­sen­gers and crew.

The Di­vi­sion said the suc­cess of this sea­son was due in part to strong part­ner­ships with tour op­er­a­tors and cul­tur­al groups, and it plans to im­prove the is­land’s cruise in­fra­struc­ture for fu­ture vis­its.

“We ex­tend our heart­felt thanks to our part­ners, tour op­er­a­tors, cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors, and every To­bag­on­ian who con­tributed to this suc­cess,” Bur­ris said.