Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands (Oct 21 2014) The Cayman Islands has once again recorded stellar numbers of air arrivals, demonstrating the strength of the tourism sector for the country. Data for the month of August shows that the Cayman Islands have continued to break visitor arrivals records year to date, with the expectation that the trend will continue throughout the remainder of the year.

Over 30,564 visitors arrived in the Cayman Islands through Owen Roberts International Airport in the month of August. The arrivals statistics show a notable increase of over 24% when compared to August 2013 and a steady climb year-to-date at 11.73%. It is the highest air arrivals figures for the month of August since the year 2000.

“This is an impressive year of positive numbers and is clearly demonstrating our strength in destination marketing as well as enhanced tourism partner collaborations,” commented Minister of Tourism, Hon. Moses Kirkconnell. He says, “Not only are air arrivals surpassing expectations, cruise visitation is up over 56% for August 2014. For the month of August, the cruise sector hosted 105,936 passengers with only 16 ships in port in August.”

Year to date cruise arrivals are 17.27% higher in 2014 versus 2013. “We saw the inclusion of Cayman Brac into our cruise schedule this year and I am pleased to say there will be more visits in the months to come and continuing into 2015,” the Minister said. “It is the goal of my administration to create jobs and spread the economic benefit to all people of the Cayman Islands.”

Visitation overall has outperformed recent years and we are on pace to exceed 2013 performance. This sets the bar high as the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism continues to develop our tourism product and attract visitors to the Cayman Islands.

“These arrivals are the result of the innovative plans and well-informed strategies that my department have been activating, not only in 2014 but in recent years. We take a long-term strategic approach to this very important pillar of the economy in order to see these outcomes year over year,” commented Director of Tourism, Mrs. Rosa Harris. “The main business objective of the Department of Tourism is to increase arrivals to the Cayman Islands and these figures prove that hard work and sector collaboration are key ingredients to our continued success,” she said.

The statistics can be found by visiting www.caymanislands.ky/statistics.

IMAGE: ieyenews