Above: St Lucia (CJ Photo)
By the Caribbean Journal staff
Tourism to St Lucia is on the rise, according to new numbers from the Caribbean Tourism Organization.
The island received 98,219 stayover arrivals in the first three months of 2015, up 6.4 percent from the same period in 2014.
That was driven by very strong growth out of the United States and Canada; arrivals from the US market rose by 12 percent to 40,258, while Canadian stayover arrivals jumped by 13.6 percent to 20,371.
That softened the blow of a 7.7 percent drop in tourism from Europe to 26,399 arrivals in the period.
The country also saw a bounce from arrivals outside of the three major source markets, with a 13.5 percent increase in visitors from non US, Canadian or European markets.