Tourism expected to set more records this high season

Live music played at the Cyril B. Romney Tortola Pier Park as thousands of tourists filed off one of three cruise ships that called in the Virgin Islands on a recent Friday morning.

Amid gospel, reggae and other tunes, they browsed shops in the pier park before some decided to walk around Road Town and others hopped on open-air taxis to check out other parts of Tortola.

The passengers will be counted as cruise ship arrivals for this month, contributing to what officials expect to be the third recordsetting season in a row.

The previous high season, from November 2024 through April 2025, drew 851,935 total visitors — up nearly three percent from the previous record set during the corresponding period in 2023-2024, according to data from the Central Statistics Office.

The recent growth has been driven largely by a post-pandemic surge in cruise passengers as overnight arrivals have continued to trail pre-Hurricane Irma levels.

But during the 2024-2025 high season, cruise arrivals levelled out — dipping 1,650 to 641,207 during the November-through-April period — while overnight arrivals climbed 12 percent to a post-Irma high of 199,002.

Still, these overnight numbers were about 18 percent shy of the all-time record of 242,703 set during the last high season before Irma.

But Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley said during his budget address last month that tourism has continued to boom this year: The first three quarters of 2025, he said, saw cruise arrivals jump 7.2 percent and overnight arrivals climb 2.1 percent year on year.

These numbers, he said, suggest that total arrivals in 2025 will reach a new record of 1,120,000 — up about 1.8 percent from 1.1 million in 2024.

High-season arrivals (from November through April)

Cruises dominant

The numbers also suggest that cruise arrivals will continue to dominate the sector, as they have each year over the past decade outside of two seasons that were directly affected by hurricanes Irma and Maria and the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the 2015-2016 and 2016- 2017 high seasons, cruise ship arrivals made up about 67 percent of total arrivals.

In the 2018-2019 season, that percentage increased to about 72 percent, and the following season it rose to about 73 percent.

After a dramatic dip at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021-2022 high season saw cruise ship arrivals make up 69 percent of the 300,238 total arrivals.

In the next high season, the total arrival numbers more than doubled, and the percentage of cruise ship arrivals jumped to about 76 percent.

The 2023-2024 season saw the highest-ever percentage of cruise passengers, at about 78 percent of 828,463 total arrivals.

In the most recent season, 2024-2025, the percentage dipped slightly, but cruise passengers still made up three quarters of the total arrival numbers.

Tourists pose while taxi driver Keon Smith photographs them in the Bellevue area, near “Da Office” table which overlooks Guana Island, as well as Great and Little Camanoe Islands, on a recent Friday. (Photo: ALLISON VAUGHN)

Overnight arrivals

The overnight sector, meanwhile, has been slower to recover from Irma, in part because the storm severely damaged resorts and other land-based accommodations.

To date, the 2016-2017 season — which ended less than five months before Irma — still holds the record for overnight visitors arrivals, with 242,703.

The 2015-2016 season saw the second-highest overnight numbers in the past decade, with only 528 fewer visitors than the 2016- 2017 season.

After the overall tourism numbers began to bounce back following the Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns, the overnight visitor numbers began to climb again.

However, while cruise numbers have far surpassed the 2015- 2016 and 2016-2017 seasons by more than 130,000 passengers, the overnight numbers have lagged behind.

In the 2021-2022 season, there were 89,802 overnight visitors. The following season, this number jumped by about 63 percent, to 146,197.

After that, the number of overnight visitors has continued to increase steadily, with 177,739 visitors in the 2023-2024 season and 199,002 in the 2024-2025 season.

Tourists take a two-hour island tour of Tortola on a recent Friday morning. Taxi driver Keon Smith shared information about the Virgin Islands while stopping at lookout-points and other spots around the island, including Cane Garden Bay beach and the Callwood Distillery. (Photo: ALLISON VAUGHN)

Data outliers

Over the past 10 years, there were only two seasons in which the overnight arrivals exceeded cruise ship arrivals: the 2017- 2018 season after hurricanes Irma and Maria; and the 2020- 2021 season during the Covid-19 pandemic.

These two periods also saw the lowest total arrival numbers over the past decade.

In the 2017-2018 season, the VI saw 124,841 total arrivals: 47,457 were cruise passengers; 70,401 were overnight visitors; and 6,983 were day trippers.

In the 2020-2021 season — when the pandemic had shut down much of the world — the VI saw its lowest arrival numbers in the past ten years. Of the 8,165 total arrivals during this period, 7,418 were overnighters, 747 were day trippers, and none were cruise ship passengers.