Arrivals to U.S. Virgin Islands Took Summer Nosedive

Air and cruise arrivals to the U.S. Virgin Islands flagged a bit this summer, while hotel occupancies rose 7 percent over the same period last year.

In July, the volume of cruise passengers to St. Thomas/St. John dropped by almost 25 percent from July 2004, according to statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Development. Cruise passengers totaled 94,655, arriving on 29 ships in July, down from 123,655 passengers who arrived on 40 ships in July 2004.

There were no cruise calls in St. Croix in July. June´s cruise figures also reflected a decrease of 21 percent from June 2004. The passenger total that month was 99,201 versus 126,643 the previous June.

Tourism officials attributed the cruise drop in June and July to the redeployment of several cruise ships to Asian ports.

Plummeting numbers in air arrivals were not so dramatic. In July in St. Thomas, a dip of 0.6 percent was recorded, and the total number of visitors coming by air was 48,090, down slightly from the 48,401 last July.

Hotel occupancies throughout the territory rose on average from 62.8 percent in July 2004 to 69.6 percent last July. St. Thomas/St. John hotels registered occupancies of almost 73 percent in July versus 67 percent in July 2004.

The total number of visitors to the USVI from January through July was up 2.2 percent to 1.7 million visitors compared with 1.6 million for the same period last year.

European visitors accounted for the biggest increases, followed by visitors from South America, Canada and Central America. The upswing from Europe could be attributed, in part, to the weak U.S. dollar as well as aggressive marketing efforts abroad, according to Tourism Department officials.