Visitor arrivals for 2004 were off to a reasonably good start with all the categories of visitors, excursionists and tourists, showing more than 10% increases over their corresponding 2003 figures.

Overall visitor arrivals for January 2004 showed a 14% increase over the respective period of 2003. A total of 10,507 visitors came to the shores of Anguilla. Over the past five years since 2000, this total was only rivaled by its corresponding 2001 figure of 11,794 visitor arrivals.

The U.S.A continued the trend of being the country of origin from which most of the visitors to Anguilla originated.

Visitor Arrivals for January 2004

Tourists (Stay-over visitors)
Tourists accounted for 43.5% of the total visitor arrivals to Anguilla during the month under review. January 2004 recorded the highest total of tourist arrivals over the past five years since 2000. 4,580 tourists visited the island in January 2004 an increase of 14% over the 2003 figure.

Of the 4,580 tourists, 40.2%, 1,843 stayed in Anguilla for between 4-7 days, while 29%, 1,330 stayed for between 8-15 days and 20.3%, 932 stayed for between 1-3 days. 6.4%, 291 stayed for 23 or more days and the remaining 4.0%, 184 stayed for between 16-22 days.

The main port of entry for tourists during this month was by air, arrivals through Wallblake accounted for 53.7%, 2,462, while 2,118 tourists entered the island via the seaports with Blowing Point and Sandy Ground accounting for 1,783 and 335 tourist respectively.

The U.S.A was the main country of residence from which most of Anguilla’s tourists came during the month of January 2004. Of the total tourists arrivals, 3,090 (67%) of them were from the U.S.A, an increase of 9.2% over the corresponding 2003 period.
However, the market showing the highest increase in tourist arrivals for the month of January 2004 was Italy with a 129.9% increase, from 67 to 154 tourists in 2003 over 2004 respectively. All other markets showed increases over last year’s January figures except St. Martin, which showed a decline of 63.6%.

Excursionists (Day Trippers)
This category of visitors continued to account for the majority of visitors to Anguilla during January dating back as far as 1994. 5,927 excursionists visited the island’s shores during January 2004. This represents 56.4% of the total visitor arrivals, an increase of 15% over the corresponding 2003 period.

Of the 5,927 excursionists arrivals 98.6% of them entered through one of the seaports, with Blowing Point registering 4,343 (74.3%) and Sandy Ground 1,503 (25.7%) of the arrivals respectively.

As with the tourists arrivals, the U.S.A was the country of origin from which most of the excursionists came. A 21.2% increase was registered over the corresponding period in 2003. Additionally, Europe (other) registered the highest increase in excursionists of 74.9% over its corresponding 2003 figures.

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