Above: the Cayman Islands

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The Cayman Islands is reporting a significant increase in tourism numbers.

The British Overseas Territory received 210,491 tourist stopover arrivals in the first half of 2014, a 9.4 percent improvement over the first six months of 2013, according to Caribbean Tourism Organization data.

The territory reported a 9 percent improvement in the winter tourist season, along with a 10.2 percent improvement so far in the summer of 2014.

That represented one of the highest first-half improvements of any Caribbean destination, with only Belize and Grenada reporting larger increases in arrivals.

On the cruise side, the Cayman Islands received 861,517 cruise passenger arrivals, an 8.6 percent improvement over the first half of 2013.

In 2013, the Cayman Islands received a total of 345,387 visitors for the calendar year, a 7.4 percent increase over 2012.