The first six months of 2024 set a tourism record, bringing the most visitor arrivals of any first half in Virgin Islands history and causing Premier Dr. Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley to express “delight” in the “historic performance” under his government.
But the record was driven mostly by a dramatic post-pandemic surge in cruise ship passengers, while overnight visitor numbers for the first half of this year were nearly 24 percent below their 2017 first-half peak of about 243,000.
The data suggest that the territory’s overnight sector, which grew steadily over the five-year period leading up to Hurricane Irma in 2017, has not fully recovered from the double-whammy of the Category Five storm and the pandemic that started less than three years later.
Meanwhile, cruise passengers are increasingly dominating total tourist arrivals.
Between 2013 and 2017, they made up about 57 percent of first-half arrivals, peaking at just over 62 percent in 2016. In the first half of 2023 and 2024, by contrast, they made up about 72 percent of total arrivals.
Officials said they expect all arrivals to pick up in the coming months, but the numbers nevertheless raise economic questions for a territory where overnight visitors — who include yacht charterers and guests at land-based resorts and villas — have historically brought in the great majority of total tourism revenue.
The numbers
Over the short term, the recent arrival numbers appear overwhelmingly positive across the board.
From January through June of this year, about 683,000 visitors came to the territory, including some 490,000 cruise passengers and about 185,000 overnight guests, with day-trippers making up the balance.
That marks an approximately 17 percent increase from the approximately 582,000 visitors who came in the first six months of 2023 — nearly 422,000 cruise tourists and about 155,000 overnighters, with day-trippers making up the rest.
Dr. Wheatley cited these year-on-year increases in July when he praised the sector’s first-half performance, noting that 2024 cruise arrivals were up 16.2 percent and overnight arrivals 19.3 percent over the first half of 2023.
“These figures underscore the Virgin Islands’ enduring appeal,” Dr. Wheatley said in a press release, adding that his government looks forward to “building on this momentum and welcoming even more visitors to our beautiful islands.”
First-Half Tourism Arrivals by Year
Overnight visitors
However, a more nuanced picture emerges when comparing the recent overnight arrivals to pre-Irma numbers.
During the five years before the storm devastated the territory on Sept. 6, 2017, more than 200,000 overnight visitors arrived in the VI each first half. The first half of 2013 brought nearly 219,000, and the number climbed steadily each year to nearly 244,000 in 2017.
But since then, first-half overnight numbers haven’t even reached the 200,000 mark. Instead, they fluctuated dramatically in the aftermath of Irma and during the pandemic before reaching the post-Irma high of about 185,000 in the first half of this year.
Shortage of rooms
Tourism stakeholders blame the overnight sector’s slower recovery largely on a continued shortage in accommodations caused by Irma. BVI Tourist Board Public Relations Manager Keith Dawson told the Beacon that the territory currently offers about 1,600 land-based rooms between hotels, resorts and villas — a number he said doesn’t count apartments renting through Airbnb and other “shared economy” arrangements.
Before Irma, by contrast, there were around 2,300 rooms on offer, he said, explaining that previous government estimates putting the pre-hurricane number at 2,700 were calculated differently.
Much of the shortfall comes from major properties that have not yet reopened at full capacity.
For example, Peter Island Resort, which has 52 rooms along with suites and villas, shuttered in 2017 and isn’t slated to reopen until November of this year. And Long Bay Beach Resort — which in the years before Irma had already downsized from a year-round facility with more than 100 units to a seasonal 42-room hotel — reopened in 2020 as a 37-unit property.
In Virgin Gorda, the Bitter End Yacht Club has reopened only at partial capacity, and the 31-suite Biras Creek Resort — which closed in 2015 amid a legal dispute — was destroyed during Irma and has not yet rebuilt aside from a new waterfront restaurant.
‘Incredible’ numbers?
Using Peter Island and Long Bay as examples of the limitations facing the tourism sector, Agriculture and Fisheries Junior Minister Dr. Karl Dawson called the overnight arrival numbers in the first half of 2024 “incredible.”
“With less accommodation available and less big-name accommodation available, the numbers are still rising,” he told the Beacon.
He’s also optimistic that overnight arrivals will exceed the pre-Irma numbers this year.
“Barring, you know, a hurricane, a storm of serious consequence, I think we actually will surpass the 2016 numbers this year,” he said. “We’re on pace to do that.”
Shaina Smith, the chair of the BVI Chamber of Commerce, agreed that limited accommodation options are a major reason overnight arrivals have not returned to their previous numbers.
She added that properties like Peter Island and Biras Creek “are major resorts that are part of the housing stock and are still not fully online.”
On the water
The yachting sector, which brings in most of the rest of the territory’s overnight visitors, has also reported a halting recovery in recent months.
“The general consensus — especially from speaking to other charter companies — is that it was a pretty slow season,” said Jeremy Twist, the charter manager for Conch Charters.
But he said the slow recovery was not due to a lack of boats. Though the BVI Tourist Board could not provide the total number of yacht berths available in the territory, Mr. Twist said he believes that most charter companies are “all back at pre-Irma numbers or thereabouts.”
The sector, he added, has also “mostly recovered” from the Covid-19 pandemic aside from a lingering “financial effect.”
Instead, Mr. Twist and his colleague Rasika Twist, charter sales manager at Conch Charters, blamed the slower season largely on geopolitical issues like the wars in Ukraine and Israel.
“I think people were just a little bit cagey about travelling and, you know, cagey about the future,” Ms. Twist said, adding, “I don’t think it has anything to do with the facilities in the BVI or anything like that. I think it’s just, you know, people [and] their budgets.”
Coming season
However, both Conch Charters employees expect the upcoming tourism season to improve.
“Forward bookings are looking good,” Mr. Twist said. “At least in our business, I can’t go up to other charter companies and get exact information, but I can speak to them, and the feedback I’m getting is, yeah, next season’s looking way better.”
The Charter Yacht Society has a similar outlook, according to Executive Director Janet Oliver.
“In general, the 2023-24 season for crewed yachts was on the lower side of average,” Ms. Oliver told the Beacon.
However, she also reported an increase in the average price of the charters that were booked, and she said many yachts were fully booked even though others had a slower season.
“This past season, we saw the last of the Covid reschedules, an increase in the stock of BVI-based crewed yachts and a US presidential election on the horizon: a myriad of factors to affect overall booking numbers,” she added.
Pandemic decisions
Andrew Ball, the chairman of the Marine Association of the BVI, blamed the overnight sector’s delayed recovery in part on decisions made at the height of the pandemic.
At the time, he said, many visitors were turned away with scant consideration.
“We lost a 20-year or 30-year group of these sort of emotionally invested people that were repeat clients,” he said. “I do feel like most of those people will never come to BVI again.”
Though Mr. Ball acknowledged that the VI is likely headed for a record year in terms of overall tourist arrivals, he stressed the need for a “balance” between the different tourism subsectors in the VI.
“This comes back to the idea of having a direction and national policy,” Mr. Ball said. “What are we trying to attract?”
For more than a decade, successive governments have been promising a national tourism strategy to replace an outdated one adopted in the mid-1990s.
But various attempts have fallen short.
In January, for instance, Dr. Wheatley told the House of Assembly that a tourism strategy would be completed by year-end. However, he later walked back that promise, saying instead that work would begin by that deadline.
Cruise boom
In the meantime, cruise tourism has come rushing back with the government’s full support even as the overnight sector’s recovery has dragged.
In both 2023 and 2024, cruise passenger arrivals in the January-to-June period comfortably exceeded their pre-Irma levels.
Prior to last year, first-half cruise arrivals had previously peaked at over 411,000 in the first six months of 2016, the year the Cyril B. Romney Tortola Pier Park opened.
They dropped to some 368,000 in the first half of 2017 before tanking to about 35,000 in 2018’s first half as the territory struggled to recover from Irma.
During the first six months of 2019, cruise arrivals were apparently recovering from the storm as the territory saw numbers on par with pre-Irma arrivals.
But then the Covid-19 pandemic shut out cruise visitors completely, and the first half of 2021 saw none at all.
After that, first-half numbers have been on a steady incline, climbing to more than 175,000 in 2022 before setting a first-half record of nearly 422,000 last year and then topping that record with about 490,000 in the first six months of this year.
‘More numbers’
In May, government officials celebrated the boom during a joint press conference with senior cruise executives.
“We’ve partnered with the [Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association] so that we can get more numbers into our shores and make sure that the guest experience is where they intend to visit and come back again,” Communications and Works Minister Kye Rymer said during the press conference. “Once we do a study and we see where there’s oversaturating in our territory, then we would try to do some limitation of the numbers coming to our shores.”
800,000 forecast this year
FCCA CEO Michele Paige made similar promises.
“Your high number of [2016] was over 600,000 cruise passengers you reached,” Ms. Paige said. “This year, you’re forecasted to reach well over 800,000.”
Freeman Rogers contributed reporting to this story.