Tourism Minister Dr. Ernest Hilaire is predicting a strong rebound for Saint Lucia’s cruise sector, with passenger arrivals expected to rise by more than 10 percent during the 2025/2026 cruise season.
“We’re expecting cruise passenger arrivals to increase by over 10 percent,” Dr. Hilaire announced. “We expect a significant increase. We’re expecting to top 800,000 this cruise season, which will be a very, very healthy increase for us, and I’m excited about it.”
The minister noted that this growth will come despite ongoing infrastructure works.
“It will be done even against the backdrop of us not having completed all the improvements that we want to have,” he said.
“And the plan is in the next two years also to reach up to one million arrivals. I mean that’s the plan, and we’re working very hard to achieve it.”
Dr. Hilaire credited the island’s appeal and partnerships for its growing success in the southern Caribbean cruise market.
“There is a limiting factor in terms of ships coming down to the southern part of the Caribbean,” he explained.
“But we believe we have a very good product. We have an excellent relationship with GPH, and once they complete their works at the port in San Juan, it would make us even more favorably located.”
The minister recalled that San Juan had previously been a key hub for homeporting and regional travel.
“San Juan used to be a hub and used to have a lot of home porting. In fact, that even benefited us with American Airlines and all those flights we used to get two, three times a day from San Juan,” he said.
“We are expecting once GPH gets going in San Juan, it would make us even more favorably positioned, and we certainly built on that relationship with GPH.”
Beyond arrivals, Dr. Hilaire said the focus remains on increasing local spending and enhancing the visitor experience. “We’re asking ourselves, whose passengers come in, how can we get them to spend more in Saint Lucia? How can we create more experiences so that they can spend more in Saint Lucia?” he said.
According to Dr. Hilaire, the ministry is investing in new attractions and training programs to elevate the island’s tourism offering. “We’re working on the sculpture park, for example. We’re working on a number of beach facilities,” he revealed. “If you go to Reduit Beach right now, we are adding toilets, we are adding vending space. If you go to Morne Pimard, you’ll see the beach park that is being developed, and hopefully we’ll be able to open it in the next two to three weeks.”
He added that training remains a top priority.
“You will see a lot of product development taking place,” he said. “Also, training of vendors and training of taxi drivers, again to enhance the product. We want to have a world-class product.”
With record-breaking projections and a slate of new upgrades on the horizon, Saint Lucia’s cruise sector appears well-positioned to chart a course toward its next milestone, one million annual cruise arrivals.