Saint Lucia’s just-concluded 2025/26 cruise tourism season has emerged as the strongest performing period for the island’s cruise sector since the global COVID-19 pandemic brought international travel to a standstill, with visitor arrivals now nearly matching pre-pandemic record levels, industry officials confirmed this week.
Presenting data at a cross-stakeholder sectoral review meeting held May 26 at the Harbor Club in Gros Islet — an event co-hosted by the Saint Lucia Department of Tourism, Saint Lucia Tourism Authority (SLTA), and Saint Lucia Cruise Port that brought together representatives from customs, tour operators, port management, taxi associations, and public health agencies — Javan Lewis, SLTA’s Business Intelligence Manager, shared that the season recorded a total of 673,700 cruise passenger arrivals. This marked an 8% year-over-year increase from the 2024/25 season, and only a 0.5% gap from the all-time arrival record set in the 2018/19 pre-pandemic season.
Notably, the growth in passenger numbers came despite a relatively small increase in total ship calls this season. The island welcomed 280 cruise vessel calls, just two more than the previous season, representing a 1% year-over-year rise. When compared to the 2018/19 peak, total ship calls are still down 11%. Lewis explained that this disparity between ship call growth and passenger growth is largely due to the trend toward larger cruise vessels that carry far more passengers per trip than older models. “We’re seeing growth in arrivals despite fewer calls,” he noted.
This steady recovery of cruise passenger volumes to near pre-pandemic levels has been hailed as a particularly encouraging milestone for Saint Lucia’s tourism-dependent economy, supporting thousands of local jobs across connected sectors from street vendors and hospitality workers to taxi operators and tour guides. Initial pilot survey data collected by SLTA offers a detailed profile of this season’s cruise visitors: 42% hail from the United States, making it the largest source market, followed by the United Kingdom which accounts for 31% of arrivals. The average cruise passenger is 52.7 years old, and 70% of this season’s cruise visitors identified as female. More than 63% of passengers opted for independent self-guided exploration of the island during their shore stop, and overall visitor satisfaction hit an impressive 95%: 96% of respondents praised Saint Lucia’s local cuisine, 94% expressed satisfaction with guided tour offerings, and 95% rated their shopping experiences positively.
In terms of economic impact, the 2025/26 season generated an estimated US$48.7 million (equal to roughly EC$131 million) in direct onshore spending, with the average passenger spending exactly US$80 during their time on the island. Most cruise visitors stay on shore for just one to six hours, a pattern that Lewis says points to a key area for future improvement: developing more high-quality, short-duration experiences located close to the cruise port to better cater to the needs of day-tripping passengers.
Lance Arnold, General Manager of Saint Lucia Cruise Ports, framed the review gathering as a practical working session rather than a purely ceremonial discussion, urging stakeholders to embrace constructive criticism to drive progress. “It is through being uncomfortable that we can enact change. If we are comfortable, we will not change,” he told attendees. Donalyn Vittet, Permanent Secretary in Saint Lucia’s Department of Tourism, echoed this focus on actionable solutions, emphasizing that the goal of the meeting was not just to identify sector challenges but to develop concrete plans to address them moving forward. “We are here to solve problems, not just to call them out,” Vittet said. “But I want in a big way going forward for us to put concrete means to solve them.”