Cayman visitors to Jamaica fall for second year

Visitor arrivals from the Cayman Islands to Jamaica fell nearly 9% in the first half of 2026, continuing a decline that began last year, although Cayman remains the country’s largest individually identified Caribbean source market.

Figures from the Jamaica Tourist Board, reported by Tourism Analytics, show that stopover visitors from Cayman fell from 13,435 in the first six months of 2025 to 12,241 during the same period this year, a decline of 1,194 visitors, or 8.9%.

Despite the decline, Cayman sent more visitors to Jamaica than Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and the Bahamas combined, and remained the country’s fourth-largest individual source market behind the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Cayman’s visitor numbers also exceeded the 11,047 arrivals recorded in Jamaica’s separate “Rest of Caribbean” category, which excludes countries reported individually.

That category recorded a 10.7% decline during the first half of 2026, compared with Cayman’s 8.9% reduction.

The downturn from Cayman was also considerably smaller than Jamaica’s overall 23.5% decline in stopover arrivals, which followed the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa in October 2025.

Arrivals from the United States, Jamaica’s largest tourism market, fell 27.9%, while Canadian visitors declined 23.4%.

Reversal after years of growth

The decline marks a reversal of two years of strong post-pandemic growth in travel from Cayman to Jamaica, with visitor numbers surging 58.8% from 15,391 in 2022 to 24,442 in 2023, before climbing another 27.3% to 31,111 in 2024.

That upward trend ended in 2025, when arrivals fell 6.9% to 28,966, with the downturn continuing into the first half of 2026.

Significantly, the decline began before Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica, indicating that the storm alone cannot account for the weakening visitor numbers. The country’s tourism industry was closed following the Category 5 storm and reopened in December 2025.

“Recovery cannot be left to chance. We are aligning marketing, communications, infrastructure repairs, aid, logistics, and every enabling support behind a single objective: full industry operation by December 15,” Minister Bartlett announced just days after the disaster struck.

Hurricane and airlift disruptions

Hurricane Melissa contributed to the wider tourism downturn, damaging hotels and infrastructure, particularly in the western resort areas of Montego Bay, Negril and St. Elizabeth.

By May 2026, approximately 75% of the country’s hotel rooms and 89% of tourist attractions had reopened. Airports and cruise ports had also resumed full operations.

However, the recovery has been gradual. Speaking at the Jamaica Product Exchange in September, Deputy Director of Tourism for the Americas Phillip Rose said approximately 70% of the hotel room stock affected by the hurricane had returned to service, with the remaining 30% expected to reopen largely by early 2027.

More than 11,000 rooms were expected to return to Jamaica’s tourism inventory between 2026 and 2027.

The hurricane’s impact has also been reflected in airline capacity. According to figures released by the Jamaica Tourist Board, just under 1.9 million airline seats were available to Jamaica between January and August 2026, a 22% reduction compared with the same period last year.

Despite the reduced capacity, flights operated with an average passenger load factor of 85%, up 3.8 percentage points, suggesting that demand remained relatively strong even as fewer seats were available.