The Saint Lucia Tourist Board reports record stay-over arrivals for 2010, achieving the highest number of arrivals in the island’s history, representing a 10 percent increase over 2009.
According to Tourism Director Louis Lewis, these results are particularly impressive because of several threats that impacted the industry in 2010 including the passage of Hurricane Tomas in the fourth quarter, the Icelandic ash cloud in April and bad weather in major source markets in December.
The successes recorded in the first nine months of the year heavily contributed to the overall total stay-over arrivals of 305,937 for an increase of 10 percent from 2009,1 percent higher than recorded in 2006, the second best year to date.
The U.S. remained the largest source market, accounting for 42 percent of arrivals, while the United Kingdom market captured the second largest share at 22 percent followed by the Caribbean market at 18 percent and Canada at 10 percent.
Year-to-date cruise passenger arrivals totaled 670,043, a 4.2-percent decrease from 2009. Visitor arrivals by yacht grew marginally over 2009, with a 0.2-percent increase recorded at IGY Rodney Bay Marina.
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