TORONTO, Canada (CMC) — The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) has admitted that the Canadian market is proving to be a challenge for the regional tourism sector, registering a decline this year over the period 2015.

CTO Secretary General Hugh Riley, speaking at a CTO organised Media Day event here, said that last year the sector recorded a 4.5 per cent increase in visitor arrivals from Canada last year.

“We are experiencing a decline this year. Our research department reports that during the first six months of 2016, the Caribbean welcomed approximately 2.1 million Canadians, down 3.7 per cent when compared to the same period last year,” he said, noting that this has been attributed to the depreciation of the Canadian dollar with respect to the United States currency.

“We saw the numbers fall during each of the first six months, with the exception of May which was flat.

In the first quarter we recorded a decline of 3.9 per cent, and a slightly better performance in the second quarter, which recorded a drop of 3.3 per cent when compared to the same period in 2015.”

Riley said that eight of the 24 reporting destinations recorded growth, with highs of 24.9 per cent in the Turks and Caicos Islands and 14.1 per cent in Suriname, while Barbados, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Guyana, St. Maarten and St. Vincent & the Grenadines registered moderate growth.

He told the event that as far as the source Provinces are concerned, Ontario continues to be the number one market, producing 61 per cent of Canada’s visitors to the Caribbean, with Quebec a distant second at 11 per cent.

Cuba remained the top Caribbean destination for Canadians during the first half of this year, receiving over 527,000 visitors, down 4.3 per cent when compared to last year.

Overall, taking into account all markets, visitor arrivals to the Caribbean grew by 5.2 per cent during the first half of this year.

Riley said in absolute terms, that’s 15.7 million tourist visits, more than 775,000 than in 2015 and that estimates showed that arrivals have increased in each month of the year.

He said all key performance metrics for the hotel industry declined for the first half of 2016 based on data compiled by Smith Travel Research (STR) Inc.

“Hotel room occupancy rate declined by 2.6 per cent to 70.1 per cent; the average daily rate fell by 2.8 per cent to $240.85 and revenue per available room was $170.45, down by 6.1 per cent. The slumps were influenced by a 1.2 per cent rise in room stock and a 2.3 per cent fall in demand, attributed in part to the sharing economy.”

Riley said that so far, the overall performance in 2016 has remained above trend “and in line with our projected 4.5 per cent to 5.5 per cent rise, which would take us over the 30 million mark for the first time ever”.