By the Caribbean Journal staff

Barbados tourism continues to surge, as the destination posted another record-setting year in 2017, according to the country’s Ministry of Tourism.

Barbados reported 663,441 stayover visitor arrivals, a record five percent increase compared to 2016, itself an all-time high for the destination.

That was accompanied by 818,752 cruise arrivals, a 12.9 percent increase over the previous year.

The island has also been boosted by the debut of new, transformed hotels like Treasure Beach, above.

“I am delighted by this news and what it says about Barbados’ tourism product,” said Barbados Tourism Minister Richard Sealy. “It is never easy as a mature tourism destination to maintain growth at these levels in the competitive business landscape in which we operate, but I am pleased that through strategic marketing efforts we have once again proven Barbados’ value as shown by the record number of arrivals at both the air and sea ports throughout 2017.”

While the United Kingdom remained the largest source market for Barbados, accounting for 33.5 percent of the market, the United States contributed a strong 28.4 percent of arrivals.

That was an 11.7 percent increase over 2016, with its 188,970 arrivals from the United States the highest for the U.S. market since 1987.