2011 Third Quarter Visitor Arrivals
Minister of Business Development and Tourism Wayne Furbert today [Nov.24] reported signs of an uptick in the island’s hospitality sector when he unveiled the third-quarter visitor arrival statistics for 2011.
The Minister said total visitor arrivals were up by 7.3 percent in July, 10.4 percent in August and — despite several hurricane threats — a whopping 56.8 percent in September.
Minister Furbert said, “I am excited to report that Bermuda continues to experience encouraging gains in visitor arrivals for the year and has achieved its third consecutive quarter of growth.
“This is great news, especially when we consider the impact of the global economic downturn in all major economies of our key target markets in the United States and the United Kingdom.
“I am pleased to report that our tourism industry is holding its own during these increasingly challenging and most competitive times.
“All segments of visitor arrivals — air, cruise and yacht arrivals to Bermuda were up for the third quarter of 2011.”
The Minister said the majority of visitor arrivals stemmed from cruise visitors, with the accumulated total arrivals for the months July, August and September increasing by a staggering 17 percent year over year with 267,602 visitors arriving here during this period.
Slideshow below, courtesy of the Ministry, click on right hand side to move forward:
“In the third quarter, air visitor arrivals increased marginally by just over one percent with 79,917 visitors flying into Bermuda during this perio,” he said. “The months of July and August remained constant, however, in September there was a positive nine percent increase in air visitors.
“The United States continued to represent the bulk of air visitors, increasing the share of visitors from this region to 77 percent (an increase of two percentage points).”
Mr. Furbert said the year to date cumulative increase in visitors from the United States now stands at 5.5 percent. During this quarter, service from Canada was reduced by four flights per week compared to 2010.
“As a result, the percentage of visitors from Canada declined by two percentage points,” he said. Cumulative air visitors from Canada year to date are showing a decline of 2.6 percent.
“Market share from the UK also declined one percentage point to represent nine percent of total visitors while those who traveled from the Rest of World increased by one percentage point to three percent and the share of European visitors stayed at constant at three percent.”
The Minister said Canada was not the only market impacted by the flight schedule changes, the United States had many adjustments in airlift compared to 2010. Maryland, for instance, experienced an increase of over 35 percent in the third quarter due to additional service supplied by Airtran.
Video of Minister Furbert’s statement:
“You will recall this airline introduced a daily Baltimore flight which ran from April until the first week in September, and five weekly flights for remainder of the month. Georgia also experienced an increase in service supplied by Airtran from May to the first week in September,” said Mr. Furbert.
“This daily service out of Atlanta drove the third quarter up an astounding 75 percent year over year from this region. The District of Columbia and the New York Tri-State area experienced a different fate, as US Air’s seasonal service from D.C. was decreased from daily to twice a week which led to a decline from this region of almost nine percent in the third quarter.
Looking ahead, the Minister said the good news is that USAir has already announced the reinstatement of daily service from Washington, DC between June and September 2012.
But the New York Tri-State area has seen a reduction in service.
“Jet Blue discontinued their second seasonal flight from New York’s JFK and Continental also discontinued their seasonal second daily flight and additional Saturday flight from Newark, which affected the third quarter in the months of July and August especially,” said the Minister. “These changes resulted in a decline of 16 percent in New York, 14 percent in Connecticut, and almost 16 percent in New Jersey.
“In this quarter, convention visitors soared with an increase of 266 percent. Visitors who declared Business and Other reasons as their purpose of visit also increased by almost eight percent and 11 percent respectively, while those visiting friends and relatives declined by nearly six percent and leisure vacationers remained constant.”
Video of Q&A:
The Minister said cruise visits for the third quarter increased by nearly 26 percent — representing 70 percent of total visitor arrivals during this period. The 187,487 visitors who cruised to the island represented the most cruise visitors in a single quarter.
“This is a direct result of spreading out the cruise season,” he said. “By doing so, an additional three ships sailed to the island in both July and August and an additional 10 cruise ships called in the month of September when the season usually begins to slow down.
Yacht arrivals also increased marginally by one percent in the third quarter: 198 yachtsmen sailed to the island during this period up slightly from 196 in the previous year.
Air visitors to the island stayed an average of 6.35 nights for the third quarter, down slightly from 6.47 nights during the same period in 2010.
“Visitors staying in commercial properties increased by three percent with the average nights stay in this category remaining stable at 5.19 nights,” said Mr. Furbert. “Performance results of the ten largest hotels also mirrored the positive trends for the quarter.
“These hotels account for 75 percent of all room inventories on the island. Occupancy percentages realized were 88 percent in July 2011 compared to 82 percent in July 2010; 84 percent in August compared to 71 percent in 2010; and 54 percent in September compared to 53% in the previous year.
“Ladies and gentlemen all three quarters of 2011 show positive growth with overall occupancy percentage increases of three percent, three percent and nine percent respectively.”
This can only be interpretted as good news, however I await the OBA spinmasters who will say that Bermuda is finished without them at the helm.
If you look at the numbers year after year and watch them go down, down down to a level that none of us should be proud and then suddenly there is spike that shows promise but look at the big picture before paiting such a wonderful one. See example below:
Year 1 – 200K
Year 2 down 10% to 180K
Year 3 down another 10% to 162K
Year 4 down another 10% to – 145.8K
Year 5 down another 10% to 131K
Year 6 UP 50% to 196K looks great at first glance, but look a little closer and you will see even with that 50% increase we are still down from 4K from five years ago. Nothing to brag about. If you want to brag…show the public that your numbers are higher than those of the UBP during their time in charge…you know the guys the PLP was going to do BETTER THAN.
Of those visitors…how many said they would not be coming back because of the poor treatment, transportation, buses and not much to do when the weather wasnt great for beaching.
Same goes for spending by government…if they claim to have cut spending by 50% this coming budget year that is great but if you have been overspending by 10% every year for the last 10 years…then the numbers all of a sudden don’t look that good.
Having read the announcement above, I do not see where the current Minister, who has only been in the job for less than a month, has given any credit to his predecessor, Patrice Minors, for these increases. Isn’t that typical of Wayne UBP Furbert. Stands up to take make it look as if he is responsible. Similar to the Corporate Games announcement last week.
Take credit for someone else’s successes and blame any shortfalls on the global economy (while ignoring the fact that our competitors have been having banner years)
Putting these figures next to say 1998 numbers would be interesting. How about comparing them to 1981?
In 2010 the airport was closed for two days and there were many cancelations due to hurricaine IGOR. Air arrivals were up by 1,111 people in 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. That is 1.4 % increase, by the time you back out the effect of the IGOR cancellations and airport closure, we are down on the same period in 2010. More PLP spin… Makes me sick. Tell the people the truth. You took credit for IGOR being the cause of lower numbers in 2010, and have suddenly forgot about it when reporting 2011.
Exactly…if numbers were soooo good and increasing regulary up 50+% why is it the Wheels Rental Cycles anounce today that they just laid off 3 employees and closed its Front Street Store? If things were so much better…or at least looking better…why close a rental store. With the three cruise lines that have already anounced that they would not be visiting regularly next year and the year after…how many more are due to close.
Lots.
Lol.. man these idiots never seem to amaze me, Tell the people the TRUTH!!