WTTC opened a new debate on cruise tourism: the benefits are real, but the Caribbean warns of a limited local impact
The latest report by the World Travel & Tourism Council, WTTC, has once again brought to the center of the international debate the question of what cruise tourism truly brings to destinations visited by ships. In the document “Cruising for Impact”, published on April 10, 2026, the organization claims that cruising is not merely a channel for the short-term arrival of passengers, but also an important generator of future demand, jobs, and a broader economic impact. At the center of their argument is the figure, based on data from the Cruise Lines International Association, that more than 60 percent of passengers return to destinations they first discovered precisely on a cruise ship. For countries and cities seeking new guests, this is a strong argument: a cruise ship can be the first contact, and a later hotel stay the real financial gain.
Yet it is precisely at this point that room for dispute has opened up. Although WTTC emphasizes the global benefits of the industry, some Caribbean experts warn that the average picture is not the same for all regions. Among the most vocal critics is hotel and tourism consultant Robert MacLellan, who has for years warned that the economic relationship between cruise companies and island destinations in the Caribbean is often unbalanced. His basic thesis is that a large share of spending remains on board, while destinations are left with infrastructure costs, pressure on space, and a relatively limited fiscal effect. This shifts the debate from the simple question of whether cruising is “good” or “bad” toward a much more important question: under what conditions can cruising be sustainable and beneficial for the local economy.
What WTTC claims and why the report matters
In the new report, WTTC presents several figures with which it aims to show that cruising is much more than a passing tourist activity. According to their data, cruising contributed 98.5 billion U.S. dollars to global GDP in 2024, created a total of 199 billion dollars in economic output, supported 1.8 million jobs, and generated 60.1 billion dollars in wages. The organization additionally emphasizes that more than 1.4 million of those jobs are land-based, that is, tied to activities and communities outside the ships themselves. WTTC is thereby trying to overturn the common perception that the bulk of the benefits remains locked within cruise companies. In their interpretation, the chain of benefits extends to port services, food and beverage suppliers, excursions, transport, trade, cultural content, and small entrepreneurs in coastal areas.
The report does not stop at economic figures alone. WTTC claims that cruising can strengthen local communities through infrastructure development, better connectivity, new knowledge, greater involvement of local suppliers, and the preservation of cultural offerings that are then marketed to a wider international audience. It also states that the capacity of the cruise industry, according to projections, will increase by 19 percent between 2022 and 2028, which means that the debate over the distribution of benefits will become increasingly important. In other words, even those who are skeptical of the report cannot ignore the fact that this is a growing sector that will continue to have a strong impact on coastal destinations.
For many governments, especially those of small island states, such a message carries political weight. If it is true that a cruise ship serves as an entry point for future guests who later return for a longer holiday, then cruising becomes part of a broader tourism development strategy, and not a separate segment viewed in isolation. But the problem arises when that global logic is mapped onto regions where fiscal arrangements, consumer habits, and the structure of tourism offerings differ from the world average.
The Caribbean objection: high traffic does not automatically mean high benefit
This is exactly where the Caribbean criticism begins. Robert MacLellan and other regional analysts warn that the number of passengers in itself says too little about the actual benefit to the local economy. A passenger who disembarks for a few hours on an island and then returns to the ship, where they eat, drink, shop, and sleep, is not the economic equivalent of a guest who arrives by plane, stays in a hotel or private accommodation, and uses restaurants, taxis, attractions, and local services over several days. This is crucial for Caribbean economies because “stay-over” guests, that is, those who spend nights in the destination, traditionally generate the highest spending, greater tax revenue, and a larger multiplier effect.
In his public appearances, MacLellan argues that the islands have often accepted a model in which cruise companies hold significant negotiating power, while local authorities compete with one another to attract as many port calls as possible. The consequence may be relatively low revenue per passenger for the destination, especially when compared with the revenues generated by hotels, restaurants, and other service providers connected to traditional stay tourism. An additional problem is that ships bring with them their own offer of food, entertainment, and retail, so a significant part of tourist spending remains locked inside the floating resort. In such a framework, the local community may see a large number of people in the streets, but not a proportional increase in income.
This is an important difference compared with the industry’s promotional arguments. The circular economy of a destination does not live from photographs of crowded waterfronts, but from how much money ends up with local workers, craftspeople, transport operators, restaurateurs, producers, and public budgets. If spending is short, fragmented, and partly captured in advance through ship excursions and the companies’ sales channels, the real local impact can be smaller than the impressive figures on total passenger traffic suggest.
Why Saint Lucia is an important example in this debate
Saint Lucia is a good example for understanding both views of the story. On the one hand, it is an economy strongly reliant on tourism and one that achieved a visible recovery after the pandemic. The International Monetary Fund estimated that the country’s economy grew by 4.7 percent in 2024, while growth of 1.7 percent was projected for 2025, with the note that 2026 is expected to bring renewed strengthening of tourism and a return of growth toward long-term potential. Likewise, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank states that Saint Lucia’s economy grew by 3.4 percent in 2024, with strong tourism activity being one of the main drivers. This confirms that tourism is not a secondary branch, but a key pillar of the country’s overall economic stability.
On the other hand, Saint Lucia’s official statistical data show how important it is to distinguish between types of tourist traffic. According to that country’s Central Statistical Office, a total of 1,047,293 visitors were recorded in 2023. Of these, 614,980 were cruise passengers, while 380,791 were guests who stayed in the destination. In other words, the cruise segment accounted for the largest number of arrivals, but at the same time total tourism expenditure, according to the same official data, amounted to 3.0676 billion Eastern Caribbean dollars, while in the tables the available data for more recent years are far more complete for stay-over spending than for cruise spending. That disproportion is precisely the essence of the Caribbean argument: a large number of cruise passengers does not necessarily mean equally strong revenue as a smaller number of guests who stay longer.
Monthly data additionally show how seasonally concentrated cruising is. In 2023, the largest waves of cruise arrivals in Saint Lucia were recorded in January, February, March, November, and December, while during the summer months traffic was very low or almost nonexistent. Such seasonality increases pressure on infrastructure and services during the part of the year when the destination must simultaneously manage traffic, security, excursions, municipal burden, and the reception of a large number of day visitors. In months of weaker traffic, that benefit decreases significantly, which further opens the question of how resilient the model is and how much benefit it leaves on the island throughout the year.
Taxes, fees, and the imbalance between the cruise and hotel sectors
One of the most sensitive points of the debate concerns the tax treatment of different tourism segments. The hotel sector in Caribbean states often pays a combination of VAT, fees, accommodation taxes, local charges, and various operating costs that flow directly into national budgets or tourism funds. The cruise sector, its critics argue, often operates within a different fiscal framework, with a lower effective burden per passenger in certain markets and with a greater ability to secure more favorable conditions through negotiations with ports and governments.
This is not merely an ideological debate between two branches of tourism, but a question of revenue structure for small island economies. If a stay-over guest leaves a larger mark in the tax system and in local spending than a cruise visitor, then every shift in focus toward cruising raises the question of opportunity cost. Critics therefore argue that governments should not view record cruise numbers as an automatic success, but should compare them with how many jobs, wages, overnight stays, local procurement, and tax revenues are generated by each type of guest.
Saint Lucia has also shown at the institutional level how important the issue of tourism financing is. On the official page dedicated to the Tourism Levy, it is stated that the tourism levy is implemented to support the development of the country’s main economic sector. This is a signal of how important public revenues from tourism are for the further development of the destination, marketing, and infrastructure. In that context, the argument of Caribbean critics is that tax and fiscal burdens should not be distributed unevenly in such a way that, in the long run, the greater burden is borne by guests who stay on the island and the local hotel sector, while cruise traffic, despite large figures, leaves a comparatively thinner mark.
The industry responds: cruising is not a substitute for stay tourism, but an entry into the destination
On the other hand, the industry and the organizations that represent it say that it is wrong to view cruising as a rival to the hotel sector. WTTC and CLIA insist that, for many passengers, cruising represents their first encounter with a destination, a kind of trial arrival that reduces uncertainty and increases the likelihood of a later return for a longer holiday. If more than 60 percent of passengers are indeed willing to return to a place they discovered from a ship, then cruising also functions as a marketing channel that brings future guests to a destination without classic promotional costs.
Such an argument has logic, especially for lesser-known destinations that seek visibility in the global tourism market. The arrival of a ship means that thousands of people in a single day can see the port, the historic core, beaches, excursion points, and gastronomic offer. Some of them may not spend much that day, but could return as an air-arrival guest, a wedding visitor, a conference participant, or a traveler with high purchasing power. In this respect, the industry particularly highlights land-based employment, supply chains, and spending related to ship provisioning, logistics, and port services.
It is important, however, to note that even this argument does not automatically invalidate the Caribbean objections. It rather shows that the benefits of cruising cannot be measured solely by one-day spending on shore. The problem is that such a long-term marketing effect is harder to prove at the level of an individual destination, especially if there is no precise tracking of how many former cruise guests later returned and how much they actually spent then. That is why the debate is increasingly moving toward the quality of data and the need for each destination to develop its own metrics of benefits, rather than relying exclusively on global averages.
What the data say about the scale and limitations of the model
The available data for Saint Lucia illustrate well both the strength and the limitations of the cruise model. Official tables show that the number of cruise passengers in 2023 rose sharply to 614,980, after 349,922 in 2022 and only 93,610 in 2021, when the sector was still feeling the consequences of the pandemic. At the same time, the number of stay-over guests in 2023 reached 380,791, which is more than the 356,237 recorded a year earlier. Therefore, both segments were recovering, but cruising was growing faster and more visibly dominant in terms of volume. That is precisely why it politically easily creates the impression of exceptionally strong success.
But the number of arrivals is not the only variable that interests local communities. It is equally important how many people use local guides, how many of them buy independent excursions, how much they spend in town, how much ships are supplied by domestic suppliers, and what the net public revenue is after municipal, traffic, and environmental costs are taken into account. WTTC in its report claims that direct cruise spending globally reached 93 billion dollars and that a large part of that ends up in local businesses, but Caribbean critics respond that the global figure does not solve the specific negotiating and fiscal relationships on small islands.
In practice, this means that two claims can be true at the same time. The first is that cruising on a global level generates an enormous economic impact and a significant number of jobs. The second is that an individual destination, especially a small island economy, may receive less from that impact than it could if it had different contractual relationships, higher fees, stronger local procurement, or better visitor flow management. The debate therefore should not be reduced to cheering for or against cruise ships, but to the question of who in the value chain retains the largest share of revenue.
Sustainable growth does not mean only more ships, but a better local impact
When speaking about the sustainability of cruise tourism, the concept of sustainability is often too quickly narrowed to the environment. But for the Caribbean, sustainability is equally an economic and social issue. A sustainable model is one in which the local community feels a measurable benefit, in which small entrepreneurs have access to the market, in which public infrastructure is not permanently burdened without appropriate compensation, and in which cruise traffic does not undermine the attractiveness of the destination for guests who stay longer and spend more. If a destination receives ever more cruise passengers but does not see proportional growth in wages, revenues, and investments, then the number of ships in itself does not mean much.
In its recommendations, WTTC therefore speaks about integrating cruising into national development strategies, greater local inclusion, and partnership with communities. It is precisely at this point that common ground can be found between the industry and the critics. Caribbean experts do not necessarily claim that cruising should be rejected, but that it should be contracted differently and managed differently. This may mean stronger encouragement of domestic excursions, more local supply, different port fees, better distribution of arrivals, investment in public space, and more precise measurement of how many cruise guests later return as stay-over tourists.
For Saint Lucia and similar destinations, this may be the most important message of the entire debate. Tourism is indeed a growth engine, but not every tourism dollar is equal. Global reports can show the size of the sector, but only local data and local experiences show how value is shared. WTTC, with its report, has succeeded in bringing cruising back into the focus of international tourism policy, but Caribbean reactions remind us that success is not measured only by the number of passengers docking at the port. It is measured by how much of that traffic remains on the island, how much benefit workers and entrepreneurs feel, and whether a short arrival from a ship turns into a long-term, stable, and more fairly distributed benefit for the destination.
Sources:- WTTC – official announcement on the report “Cruising for Impact”, with key figures on GDP, employment, wages, and the return of more than 60 percent of passengers to destinations they first discovered on a cruise ship (link)- WTTC Research Hub – report page for “Cruising for Impact”, with a description of the methodology, content, and emphasis on 1.8 million jobs and 1.4 million land-based jobs (link)- eTurboNews – article on reactions to the WTTC report and statements by consultant Robert MacLellan on the limited local impact of cruise tourism in parts of the Caribbean (link)- The Royal Gazette – report on Robert MacLellan’s view that Caribbean islands should negotiate greater benefits from cruise visits (link)- Central Statistical Office of Saint Lucia – “Selected Visitor Statistics, 2012 to 2023”, with official data on total arrivals, cruise passengers, stay-over guests, and tourism expenditure (link)- Central Statistical Office of Saint Lucia – “Visitor Expenditure, 1987 to 2023”, with an official overview of tourism expenditure and arrivals (link)- Central Statistical Office of Saint Lucia – “International Cruise Passenger Arrivals, Monthly, 2010 to 2023”, with monthly data on the seasonality of cruise arrivals (link)- IMF – Article IV consultation for Saint Lucia, with estimates of economic growth and an assessment of the importance of tourism for the country’s economy (link)- Eastern Caribbean Central Bank – overview of Saint Lucia’s economy for 2024, with the assessment that strong tourism activity was one of the drivers of growth (link)- Saint Lucia Tourism Levy – official page on the tourism levy and its role in financing the development of the tourism sector (link)
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