Select a region
The number of visitors to Guernsey, coming to the island and staying for 'leisure purposes' increased during the last few months of 2018 with VisitGuernsey describing the figures as 'healthy'.
But while the total number of staying visitors, described as the 'high value segment of the tourism market', increased by 5% in quarter 4 2018 compared with the same period in 2017 (+1,810 visitors), the number of total departing visitors (including cruise passengers and visiting yachtsmen) stood at 44,122 visitors during the quarter, which was a decrease of 2.5%.
VisitGuernsey says that decrease was down to a cruise ship visit being cancelled late in the season, which was itself caused by poor weather conditions, along with fewer visitors from yachts coming to the island between October and December.
If you take cruise passengers and visiting yachtsmen out of the statistics, the number of departing visitors actually remained stable at 43,581 – with a slight increase of +110 visitors compared with Q4 2017.
Looking at 2018 as a whole, the total number of visitors to Guernsey (including cruise ship passengers and visiting yachts) went up slightly to 420,140 (+639 visitors) compared to the year before. VisitGuernsey says this was driven by a strong growth in cruise passengers with 10,688 additional guests.
Excluding passengers on cruise ships and visiting yachts, there were 280,475 departing visitors, a decrease of -3% (-9,270 visitors) compared with 2017. This was mainly caused by a 9% fall in passengers travelling by ferry across the year, with cancellations particularly impacting the Q3 peak season period.
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.