Grenada Reports Record Visitor Numbers
The Grenada Tourism Authority announced that for the third consecutive month since September of 2022, visitor numbers have significantly increased over the pre-pandemic benchmark year of 2019.
November reflected the island’s highest-ever arrival total for the month with 14,232 visitors representing a 17 percent increase over the same month in 2019. December is also projected to break previous records.
The return of international flights into Grenada in the last quarter of 2022 included Air Canada and Sunwing Airlines from Toronto, Condor Airlines from Frankfurt and British Airways’ flight expansions from London Gatwick. Plus, Caribbean Airlines Limited now offers daily service from Trinidad and Tobago.
Grenada also hosted a number of major conferences including the CXC Annual Ministerial Summit, the Caribbean Society of Endoscopic Surgeons and the AGM of the Caribbean Chambers of Commerce.
In addition, tour operators from the U.K., U.S. and Canada attended the 2nd annual Tour Operators Marketplace meeting with local hoteliers and tourism stakeholders one-on-one, getting first-hand looks at hotels and attractions, and visiting Grenada’s sister isles of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.
“During the pandemic, we did a lot of groundwork putting systems in place to create a more efficient operation and also to evaluate our activity,” CEO of the Grenada Tourism Authority Petra Roach said in a statement. “We engaged new PR teams in North America and the U.K. and strengthened our overseas sales teams. Our digital footprint has expanded significantly which has given us a much more cost-effective marketing reach. A lot of time was prioritized for deepening the relationships with our distribution channels in the marketplace – i.e., our travel agent and tour operator partners, to better understand how their businesses aligns with our product.”
“We continue to build our brand equity so that travelers keep Grenada in their consideration set of destinations they want to visit. We are laser focused on attracting visitors who want to take advantage of our safe environment, numerous community initiatives and who want to get out and about,” Roach concluded.
Lennox Andrews, Minister of Economic Development, Planning, Tourism, ICT and Creative Economy, Agriculture and Lands, Fisheries and Cooperatives stated “We are heartened to see our arrival figures rebound so strongly with September, October and November showing increases of 11 percent, 6 percent and 17 percent respectively over the previous banner year of 2019. This is historically the highest November arrivals recorded.”
“The USA market has shown the strongest rebound and represents 61 percent of overall visitation. We expect that market to finish the year 2022 with a 2 percent growth over 2019 which, given the fact that Grenada opened its ports only in April of this year, shows how strong our recovery has been,” added Andrews. “It speaks to a sound and focused strategy where connectivity and accessibility to our tri-island state remain highly prioritized. We as a government are committed to ensuring that we provide every opportunity for our people to benefit from this industry.”