Bermuda Tourism sector showing signs of improvement

Bermuda’s tourism industry is showing “glimmers” of an upturn, but arrivals remain well below pre-coronavirus pandemic levels.

This is according to Tourism Minister Vance Campbell told the House of Assembly on Friday that the island was seeing “incremental growth” in visitor numbers, but COVID-19 was still taking its toll.

He said that in the year to June, Bermuda welcomed 60,955 air visitors, and while this was up considerably on 2021, it was 52 percent down on the 2019 total.

In June, 19,600 air visitors arrived, which was near twice the level for the same month last year, but 43 percent below 2019 numbers.

The year to June also saw 123,013 cruise passengers, including more than 58,000 last month, visit the island, representing a 47 percent decline on 2019 — a year in which a record 808,242 visitors came to Bermuda by air and sea.

Presenting the Bermuda Tourism Authority’s annual report for the 2021 fiscal year, Campbell said the pandemic, which has killed 141 people here since March 2020, was still having an impact.

“With a COVID-19 spike in case numbers, international travel continued to be challenging, and the overall revenue from visitors was substantially below budget – primarily in the income from the cruise ship passenger fees,” he said.

“Six months into 2022, global tourism is finally seeing glimmers of good news with a significant uptick compared with 2021.

“In Bermuda, our tourism product is likewise seeing incremental growth.”

Insisting prospects were looking up, Campbell added: “There has been good news on the cruise front this June with a total passenger count of 58,468.

“The total number of arriving cruise passengers year-to-date has spiked to 123,013 after a slow return to cruise travel since the lows of 2020 and 2021.

“Tourism figures reflect that the gap between 2019 and 2022 cruise passenger numbers for June is 26 percent.

“Year-to-date numbers show a 47-cent decline compared to the same period in 2019.

“Vacation rentals have shown remarkable recovery, with occupancy growing to 75 percent for May 2022 – 59 percent year to date – from a high of 62 percent occupancy in May 2019 – 52 percent year to date.”