THE tourism industry in the Falkland Islands is experiencing strong annual growth with visitor numbers increasing by more than 200 per cent over the past decade.
Many of these arrivals are down to the popularity of the islands as a stopping-off point for cruises and expedition ships, in fact during the 2008/09 season 69,000 tourists visited the Falklands of which 62,600 arrived onboard cruise or expedition vessels from 95 different countries.
However 2009 saw a marked drop in arrivals by almost 18 per cent, partly due to inclement weather, and two cruise ships have withdrawn the islands from their itinerary for the 2010/11 season.
Land-based tourism continues to experience modest growth but only around 2,000 visitors reach the islands by air each year though there are twice-weekly flights operated by the Ministry of Defence out of the UK and a weekly service from Santiago in Chile operated by LAN.
The top three visiting nations are the US, Canada and the UK and there are more than 30 European tour operators featuring tailor-made packages and escorted tours to the islands. And the forecast for 2010 is positive with Jake Downing, general manager of Falkland Islands Tourist Board, telling Mercopress: “Having faced a difficult 2009, I am confident that 2010 and beyond will witness improvement for the Falklands’ tourism industry. The tourist board will continue to implement its proactive marketing, advertising and PR strategy in priority source markets – Europe and America.
“Our objective is to build the cruise tourism market but a key focus will be encouraging visitor expenditure in the Falklands. Overall expenditure in 2010 by inbound overnight tourists, cruise passengers and domestic tourists is expected to total over £5.4 million ($8.4 million) – a small growth over 2009’s figure.