Foreign air and sea arrivals to the Out Islands have improved by 10 percent between January and July 2014, compared to the same period in 2013, according to the latest data from the Research Statistics and Scanning Units in the Ministry of Tourism.
The statistics, which were released recently, show that foreign air arrivals to the Out Islands increased by one percent.
However, in 2014, air and sea arrivals increased every month except March, which saw a decrease of 7.5 percent compared to 2013.
"Air arrivals increased to Andros, Berry Islands, Bimini, Cat Cay, Exuma, Inagua, Long island and San Salvador between January to July 2014 compared to the same period of 2013," officials said.
According to officials, stopover visitor arrivals to the Out Islands between January to May 2014 were better than when the financial meltdown occurred in 2008.
"Stopovers arrivals to the Out Islands grew by nine percent between January to May 2014. In May YTD (year to date) 2014, stopover visitor arrivals were up from the United States, Europe, Latin America, Australia, Africa and the Middle East," officials said.
In terms of hotel performance, some hotels increased revenue by increasing the room nights sold, others increased their average daily rates (ADR) to increase room revenue.
"Hotel occupancy, ADR and room revenue were all up for the Out Islands as a whole. Key markets like the U.S., Europe and Latin America were all up to the Out Islands. Stopover business from Canada to the Out Islands faltered between January to May 2014 as Grand Bahama appeared to siphon off some of these stopovers," officials said.
"But despite the challenge that the Out Islands have in reclaiming market share of Canadian stopover business from Grand Bahama island, the outlook for the Out Islands will regain the stopover numbers that were lost because of the financial meltdown of 2008."

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