The sound of merengue. The taste of artisan rum. The softness of a steel pot. This is the world’s largest cruise event and a huge success for the world’s largest cruise destination.
This week’s Seatrade Cruise Global conference saw heavy participation from the Caribbean, with top destinations showing off their best form in Miami Beach.
This included impressive displays from countries such as Barbados, St. Kitts, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, and the US Virgin Islands (the latter included some very entertaining Moko Jumbies for good measure).
Other Caribbean booths with strong displays included Martinique, Saint-Martin and the Dominican Republic, the latter hosting a very colorful, music-centric display filled with living sculptures and merengue demonstrations.
And Puerto Rico is back with a crowd favorite and always-stocked rum bar, including the island’s newest rum expressions like Capo and other new debuts from Rums of Puerto Rico.
Cruise tourism to the Caribbean surged again last year, with nearly 36 million passengers heading to the region on cruise ships. The majority came from southern ports such as Miami, Port Canaveral and Port Everglades in Florida.
What are the most popular cruise ports in the Caribbean? The Port of Nassau remains a global leader.
This goes hand in hand with an increase in mainland port operations across the region, particularly in eastern Caribbean ports such as St Kitts, Martinique and Antigua.
