Inbound tourism volume in St. Kitts & Nevis 2022

In 2022, St. Kitts and Nevis welcomed almost 540 thousand international visitors. This represented a substantial increase in comparison to the year before when the total amounted to less than 125 thousand tourists. This increase, although significant, was not enough to reach pre-pandemic levels.

Tourism impact on Saint Kitts and Nevis’ economy

The Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis, as it is officially known, is a two-island country located in the Caribbean. Like its neighbor countries and territories, tourism plays a key role in the nation’s economy. This relation can be seen by the fact that in 2021 the travel and tourism sector directly represented over 20 percent of St. Kitts and Nevis’ GDP, which is forecast to reach nearly 1.5 billion U.S. international dollars in 2027. Following in this familiar tone, the visitor’s expenditure exhibited a mostly positive development throughout the 2010s, peaking in 2018 at 530 million East Caribbean dollars before declining slightly in 2019 and plunging in the following two years due to the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. By 2022, the spending of international tourists in the St. Kitts and Nevis had grown back to over 300 million East Caribbean dollars.

Cruise tourism in Saint Kitts and Nevis

Although not atop the ranking of the top cruise tourist spots in the Caribbean, St. Kitts and Nevis ranks among the top ten Central American and Caribbean destinations for this type of travelers. In fact, cruise tourism contributes to a great portion of Saint Kitts and Nevis’ tourism sector. Between 2013 and 2018, the Caribbean country had seen a steady increase in the number of cruise passengers, reaching nearly 1.17 million in 2018 before experiencing a considerable decline to only 102 thousand in 2021.