This week’s announcement of a decline in both stay-over and cruise tourism – a significant 13.1 percent in the case of air arrivals, but a minimal 1.9 percent decline in cruise visitor numbers – should have come as no surprise to anyone, given what is perceived to be a widespread global decrease in tourism generally.

However, what may be surprising is the contrasting experience reported by other competing destinations in the region and farther afield.

For example, St Kitts has reported a 340 percent increase in cruise ship passengers and a 6 percent increase in passenger arrivals in September this year compared to the same month in 2008.

One advantage that St Kitts has is a deep water cruise ship berth at Port Zante, a single pier along which two of the largest ocean liners in the world can dock at any one time. In fact, this port is one of only two in the entire Caribbean, at which the Queen Mary II can berth.

Interestingly, the increase in air arrival numbers in St Kitts was achieved despite a 25 percent drop in flights to the island.

In our close neighbour, Jamaica, the Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, in noting that the sector is the most resilient of all industries, with the fastest capacity for turnaround, recently pointed to the island’s success in achieving growth in the tourism sector, in a year when most other countries’ tourism is reeling from the effects of the worldwide economic recession.

In fact, Jamaica has been recognised among the top 10 growth destinations in the world.

Other regional destinations have reported considerable success in attracting more European visitors this year. The number of European visitors to the Caribbean island of Dominica increased by 11.4 per cent over the course of the first half of the year, the third largest increase for the European market during this period, with the US Virgin Islands and Saba reporting even stronger figures.

According to a report from the FCCA conference taking place in St Lucia this week, cruise spending is up in a down economy in destinations visited by cruise line-members of the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association.

Cruise tourism boosted revenues for ports and businesses in Florida, Latin America and the Caribbean in one of the gloomiest financial years since the Great Depression, according to an FCCA-commissioned study from Business Research and Economic Advisors.

Farther afield, the Hawaii Tourism Authority reported this week that the number of visitors coming to the islands in September went up 7.2 percent over the same month last year.

In the meantime, after nearly six years in the making, Royal Caribbean International took delivery this week of its newest and most revolutionary cruise ship, Oasis of the Seas. A floating architectural marvel, she spans 16 decks, displaces 225,282 gross registered tons and carries 5,400 passengers.

Clearly, these massive vessels are going to need the new cruise ship berths currently under consideration here, especially when it comes to managing tens of thousands of visitors within the space of a few hours.

It makes no sense simply to construct two new finger piers that will accommodate the largest cruise ships if no effort is made to accommodate the increased flow of pedestrian traffic that will now walk off the ships instead of being landed by tender as hitherto.

Equally clear, is the need for an urgent review of our tourism product and business model to ascertain where we are seemingly going wrong in comparison to other destinations, especially when it comes to stay-over tourism.

There’s not much we can, or should even want to do in relation to cruise visitor numbers until the new piers are built and commissioned, but stay-over visitors are another matter entirely.

Other destinations are apparently doing something right in order to achieve the significant increases reported and either we are doing something wrong, or we’re not doing enough, if anything.

For years we have been encouraging tourism stakeholders in both public and private sectors to take a fresh look at where our tourism sector is heading but, as in many other areas of activity, our entreaties seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

Perhaps the latest numbers will act as the necessary catalyst for those concerned to do something constructive even at this late stage.