Cruise season closes with rise in visitor spending

Vis­i­tor sur­veys at the Port of Spain Cruise Com­plex showed about 15,799 pas­sen­gers dis­em­barked to ex­plore Trinidad dur­ing the 2025/2026 cruise sea­son, with av­er­age spend­ing of US$59 per vis­i­tor and to­tal on­shore ex­pen­di­ture of US$932,141.

Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed stat­ed that from Oc­to­ber 2025 to Feb­ru­ary 2026, Trinidad record­ed 23,961 cruise pas­sen­gers across 14 calls and 10,723 crew mem­bers. Pas­sen­ger ar­rivals in­creased by 36 per cent com­pared to the 2024/2025 sea­son. Tour par­tic­i­pa­tion rose by 17 per cent, with 6,521 vis­i­tors join­ing lo­cal tours.

Cruise lines in­clud­ed Princess Cruis­es, Roy­al Caribbean, MSC Cruis­es, Hol­land Amer­i­ca Line, Ocea­nia Cruis­es and Swan Hel­lenic. Five ves­sels made maid­en calls, in­clud­ing SH Ve­ga, Coral Princess and He­bridean Sky. Bril­liance of the Seas record­ed 200 pas­sen­ger em­barka­tions in Trinidad.

The Unit­ed States ac­count­ed for 66 per cent of ar­rivals with 15,865 pas­sen­gers. Cana­da ac­count­ed for 17 per cent, the Unit­ed King­dom six per cent, Ger­many four per cent, the Caribbean one per cent and oth­er mar­kets six per cent.

Vis­i­tors ac­cessed tours in Port of Spain, Mara­cas, Ca­roni, Paramin and the Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre. Ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ed beach vis­its, bird sanc­tu­ary tours and cul­tur­al pre­sen­ta­tions.

Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Sen­a­tor Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj said the re­sults show growth in ar­rivals and par­tic­i­pa­tion by lo­cal busi­ness­es. He said cruise tourism sup­ports ven­dors, ar­ti­sans and tour op­er­a­tors.

Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed stat­ed that work will con­tin­ue with stake­hold­ers to ex­pand par­tic­i­pa­tion and in­crease vis­i­tor spend­ing with­in lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.