Anguilla has set new tourism records in four of the first five months of 2024, with January, February, March and May seeing the highest visitor numbers since data collection began.
April is the only month so far that did not exceed previous figures, according to the Anguilla Statistics Department.
In its latest tourism statistics summary, which looked in detail at the month of May, the department said Anguilla had welcomed 98,052 visitors in the first five months.
It said that 18,116 visitors arrived in May this year, representing a 52.9% increase from the 11,850 visitors in May 2023.
The 2nd highest number of arrivals in May was 14,339 in 2017.
Most of the visitors during this period – 98.9% – came with the intention of vacationing, while 1.1% came for business.
Passenger arrivals
Passenger arrivals, which include both visitors and residents, increased by 37% to 24,648 this May compared with the 17,993 arrivals in the same month last year.
Anguilla’s inward passenger movement by sea totalled 18,911 or 76.7% of total passenger arrivals, the Anguilla Statistics Department reported.
The Blowing Point terminal welcomed 14,991 passenger arrivals, 79.3% of those who came by sea and the remainder 3,920 or 20.7% arrived at the Sandy Ground terminal.
Passenger arrivals by air into the Clayton J Lloyd International Airport accounted for 5,737 or 23.3% of total passenger arrivals.
Stay-over visitors
Stay-over visitors to Anguilla for May 2024 totalled 10,068 – an increase of 28.6% over the corresponding 2023 figure of 7,830.
This monthly increase was recorded as the largest increase in percentage terms for 2024 so far, the statistics department said.
In this period under review, stay-over arrivals represented the larger share of visitors with 55.6% of total visitors to Anguilla.
This May outperformed any past May for the highest number of stay-over tourists, followed by May in 2019 with 8,166.
Of this type of visitor Anguilla welcomed 57,165 arrivals for 2024 thus far.
Length of stay
The intended average length of stay of stay-over visitors for May 2024 decreased to six days from the 6.3 days in May 2023.
More than half or 53% of the arrivals intended to stay for four to seven days, followed by 31.2% of whom intended to stay for one to three days.
Just 10.2% intended to stay for eight to 15 days, 4.7% for 23 or more days, and 1% indicated 16 to 22 days.
A review of the ten source markets from which the 10,068 tourists to Anguilla originated, showed that eight of the source markets registered increases with two reporting declines.
The largest contributing number of arrivals recorded was from Anguilla’s main source market the USA, with a 73.5% or 7,404 share of the total.
The Caribbean and ‘Other’ source markets followed with 7% or 707 and 3.7% or 375 respectively, the statistics department said.
The source markets that decreased in number were the ‘Italian’ and ‘Other European’ markets with -34.3% and -20.2%.
Day trippers
Excursionist or day tripper arrivals for May totalled 8,048 – more than double its corresponding 2023 figure of 4,020 and the highest in 32 years.
The second highest May figure was recorded 10 years ago in 2014 with 7,715 arrivals, the department said.
This type of visitor accounted for 44.4% of total visitors to the island in May this year.
A review of data for this type of visitor showed that all ten source markets contributed to this overall increase.
The largest percentage share of excursionist arrivals during this period originated out of the USA with 68.2% or 5,490.
This was followed by the ‘Other European’, ‘Dutch West Indies’ and ‘Canadian’ markets with 8.1% or 654, 5.8% or 464 and 5.7% or 457.
The USA and Canadian markets were the only markets to record figures that more than doubled their corresponding 2023 figures.
