By the Caribbean Journal staff

The Cayman Islands just broke a tourism record.

The destination welcomed more than 1.3 million combined visitors in the first half of 2018, the most ever for the Cayman Islands in the first six months of the year.

That was a total increase of 19.52 percent, with a total of 214,711 visitors in the period.

Air arrivals to the destination were up 15.9 percent for the first half, officials said.

I am very pleased that tourism performance in the Cayman Islands is registering consistent growth and continues to outpace projections,” said Cayman Islands Tourism Minister Moses Kirkconnell. “By applying the right marketing strategies, vision and spirit of collaboration to drive performance, the Cayman Islands tourism industry has maintained impressive, oftentimes, double-digit increases for a sustained period.”

Combined visitor spending in the period contributed more than $396 million USD to the national coffers.

That was an increase of just under $55 million compared to the same period last year.

“It is extremely encouraging to see growth in visitation for the first half of the year at a speed we have not seen since 2004,” said Director of Tourism. Rosa Harris. “As a Department, we are always looking for new, innovative ways to drive visitation while staying true to our commitment to creating sustainable tourism policies for the benefit of our people.”