Air and cruise visitor arrivals to the Cayman Islands have showed steady growth in the first five months of this year.
There was a total of 221,490 stayover air arrivals through May, representing a 5.9% increase over the same period in 2024.
However, numbers still trailed the record-setting pace of 2019 by 4.7%, according to data from Cayman Islands Department of Tourism.
Air arrivals reached 209,115 in 2024 and 232,474 in 2019 – the destination’s best year on record for stayover visitors.
The 2025 performance shows steady recovery momentum, with May’s 34,338 arrivals nearly matching 2024’s May total of 34,862.
March remained the strongest month with 58,397 air arrivals, slightly exceeding 2024’s March figure of 57,040 but falling short of the 59,563 recorded in March 2019.
Meanwhile, cruise arrivals showed a more dramatic recovery trajectory.
A total of 589,783 passengers through May represented a 2.3% increase over 2024’s 576,491 but remained significantly below pre-pandemic levels.
The same five-month period in 2019 brought 903,928 cruise passengers, meaning 2025 performance sits at 65.2 per cent of that record pace.
January cruise arrivals of 164,076 passengers exceeded both 2024’s January total of 149,392 and came closer to 2019’s peak January of 271,111.
The United States continues to dominate stayover visitor origins, with other key markets including Canada, Europe and Latin America contributing smaller but significant shares of total arrivals.
Tourism officials view the year-over-year air arrival gains as positive indicators for the destination’s competitiveness, though achieving 2019’s record performance remains the sector’s benchmark for full recovery.
The summer months traditionally show lower arrival volumes before the autumn tourism season begins in October.
