The Turks and Caicos Islands and Belize were the Caribbean’s fastest-growing tourism destinations in the first quarter of 2014, according to government and CTO data. As reported earlier this month, TCI data reported a 30 percent increase in stopover arrivals in the first quarter, with a total of 105,506 visitors.

The French Caribbean department received 159,253 tourist stopover arrivals in the first three months of 2014, a 5.1 percent improvement over the first quarter of 2013, according to new data released by the Caribbean Tourism Organization.

Costa Rica has come on top and Tunisia bottom as destinations most people would recommend for a holiday based on personal experience. A survey of 23,000 holidaymakers in 26 countries saw the UK come joint 10th with Canada and Greece in a league table of 65 countries.

Hotel mogul Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart has dubbed The Bahamas the “perfect vacation destination”, asserting that the country is on track to regain its status as the tourism mecca in the region.

While some Caribbean countries continue to struggle to keep their tourism numbers in positive territory, business is booming in Cuba, with the island nation seeing a rise of about five percent in the first four months of this year compared to the same period in 2013.