BTA: Eleventh Consecutive Quarter Of Growth

November 15, 2018

Bermuda’s tourism industry is “on pace to have its second consecutive year of record visitor arrivals,” the BTA said today as they released the 2018 third quarter arrival statistics, revealing the “eleventh consecutive quarter of growth for leisure air arrivals and spending.”

“Vacation air arrivals were up 10 percent in the third quarter and spending from the same group of visitors was up 9 percent. Year to date, those performance indicators are up 13.6 percent and 10.6 percent respectively.” the BTA said.

“The latest numbers put Bermuda on track to follow 2017’s record-breaking performance with another year of record arrival numbers when cruise visitors are factored into the equation.

“Through September 30, 2018, all key performance indicators are up when compared to 2017 including leisure air arrivals, leisure air visitor spending, cruise arrivals, hotel occupancy and vacation rental stays.”

Visitor Arrivals & Spending YTD

Visitor Arrivals & Spending YTD Bermuda Nov 2018

Bermuda Tourism Authority CEO Kevin Dallas said: “The measurement we focus on more than any other at the Bermuda Tourism Industry is leisure visitors by air.

“Performance in that area is up 26 percent in arrivals and up 35 percent in spending since the streak of quarterly growth began back in January 2016. By any measure that is a remarkable performance that every member of our team and every one of our stakeholders can be very proud of.”

The BTA added, “When compared to 2016, an additional $64 million was spent in Bermuda’s tourism economy this year [through September 30]. That spending was fueled by an additional 35,000 leisure air visitors over the same time period. Cruise visitor spending is tabulated at the end of the year.

Executive summary from the BTA report:

Slide 1 - Google Chrome 11152018 44307 PM-001

“One area showing signs of slowing is the number of available airline seats flying to Bermuda. Air capacity was down 2.5 percent in the third quarter but remains up almost 4 percent year-to-date.”

“Growing airlift has proven to be a precursor to vacation air arrival growth in Bermuda over the past several years,” said Mr. Dallas. “If that trend reverses it would be an obstacle for further growth. It’s something we are watching closely as we do our forecasting for 2019.”

The full 2018 Q3 Visitor Arrivals Report is available on the Bermuda Tourism Authority corporate website.

The Q3 2018 Visitor Arrivals Report follows below [PDF here]:

click here banner Bermuda tourism

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Comments (24)

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  1. aceboy says:

    Can’t be. We need some good old fashioned PLP interference to get those numbers down!

    • Onion Juice says:

      Well thats a good sign from when Hanbury got a big bonus while numbers were down, but tourism numbers are up worldwide.

      • aceboy says:

        The 100 day plan! Remember that? The Platinum Period! Remember that too? Faith based tourism? Ring any bells?

      • sandgrownan says:

        sooo bitter. Want your snout in the trough….some of that good tourism cash….?

        Christ you’re pathetic.

        • Onion Juice says:

          Well if um paying you $1000 a day I expect a good report.

          • sandgrownan says:

            Evidence please. I see regular statistics and information flowing out of the BTA. I see real tourism professionals working to bring more tourists to Bermuda. Not political meddling and corruption.

            What evidence do you have to suggest that the BTA is not accountable or not accountable enough? Re: salaries, I presume you have some benchmark data to backup the implication that they are too high?

            Have you analysed experience and resumes for each of the leadership team? Looked at the track record.

            Do you have a view or understanding of the tourism strategy. What would you change?

          • question says:

            What if you pay someone $1.2m for nothing?

      • The real Terry says:

        O J I guess your memory isn’t too great remember the 40 million to Global Hue and nothing in return. But as someone said the PLP need to be associated with something positive, hence getting involved with the BTA as absolutely nothing they have done is positive.

        • Toodle-oo says:

          And OJ’s memory also can’t recall that there was many jet rides involved . A jet that was owned by ‘a friend’ who was also an ex school chum and the owner of the company that got the job !
          Oh , and multiple untendered contract and as you already pointed out untold millions in costs to taxpayers with a poor ROI
          The REAL Jetgate !

  2. Sandgrownan says:

    And here’s Zane – ready to f*** it all up

    • wahoo says:

      The same zane in the @$$ that cost us $27 M at PR when was quoted $4 M? That zane in the @$$/

  3. Ba says:

    Kevin Dallas is trying to protect his job from Zane DeSilva but this won’t work as BTA still has not found a way to be self funded after OBA spend, they rent from OBA landlord and BTA does not care about attracting visitors from other parts of the world. Time to fire all those BTA big money people and get into the marketing of Bermuda on a global scale.

    • Sandgrownan says:

      Like where…Wakanda! Lol

    • Rockfish#2 says:

      Well. One has to admit. the BTA is top heavy with high salaried people whose usefulness can be questioned!
      Hence the need to make it more accountable.After all,it is the taxpayer’s money they are spending!

      • sandgrownan says:

        OK, I’ll bite.

        Evidence please. I see regular statistics and information flowing out of the BTA. I see real tourism professionals working to bring more tourists to Bermuda. Not political meddling.

        What evidence do you have to suggest that the BTA is not accountable or not accountable enough? Re: salaries, I presume you have some benchmark data to backup the implication that they are too high?

        Have you analysed experience and resumes for each of the leadership team? Looked at the track record.

        Do you have a view or understanding of the tourism strategy. What would you change?

        Thought not.

      • question says:

        Oh right. In that case we should get rid of all the civil servants whose usefulness can be questioned. After all, it’s the taxpayers money.

      • Kevin Dallas says:

        The BTA spends about 1/5 of its budget on headcount, which benchmarks pretty well (the ‘norm’ for an accredited DMO is about 1/3).

        That said, there are definitely things we can do better, and I’m always open to suggestions – even from anonymous critics.

        So, if you have some specific ideas where you think we could find efficiencies, I’d be happy to hear them?

    • Triangle Drifter says:

      Any fisherman will tell you that you can drop your line overboard anywhere but if you expect to catch anything you had better drop it where the fish are.

      The fish are east of the Mississippi River living in places that have direct flights or at least easy same day one stop same airline connections to get here. The fish also need to be very wealthy to afford the very high cost of a Bermuda vacation. The checkout person at Walmart does not have a hope of affording a Bermuda vacation.

      • 18 Year Old says:

        The checkout person could probably afford to go to other Caribbean islands which are cheaper. I don’t Bermuda to be competing with countries in the Caribbean not only will the standard of living go down it just won’t be as luxurious sadly (but not sadly) Bermuda is a place for fairly wealthy individuals. Government can decrease occupancy taxes so accommodations can lower costs but that is not that many.

    • Kevin says:

      one can quickly tell that Ba has no clue about tourism and well that’s why they are a plp loyal …cause they don’t have a clue either. The BTA should be commended. The minute the plp intervene the progress will cease …wake up you so called Bermuda for Bermudians and smell the only rose we have left in the garden …just fix the obvious stuff that is bad ….education…buses…trash trucks …roads…stop spending on wild dreams and paying off all of your friends and family

  4. Micro says:

    Proof that Government in no shape or form needs more control over the BTA.

  5. We need a Ministy of Tourism says:

    It was awesome when we had it.

    Don’t you bies remember it was the Platinum Period.

    Ready Brown said so and therefore it was so!!!

    Let’s go back to that please.

  6. Trump supporter says:

    After govt gets their hands in there. Consecutive quarters on a decline.