The Turks and Caicos Islands celebrated its one millionth visitor this month – and a week of activities will take place across the country to celebrate the milestone.
Tourism partners gathered this week to announce the upcoming special events.
Director of Tourism Ralph Higgs said: “This milestone proves that the Turks and Caicos Islands continue to be a preferred destination for many travellers.
“The week of activities will give us the opportunity to celebrate this special occasion with our1,000,000th and 1,000,001thvisitors, arriving on Grand Turk and Providenciales respectively.”
The third quarter of this year saw a massive 17 per cent increase in cruise and land based arrivals compared to 2010.
Arrivals totalled 204,084, with 78,711 land based arrivals and 125,373 cruise arrivals, while in 2010 the destination welcomed just 174,302 visitors.
Promotional and marketing efforts by the Tourist Board along with the Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association, TCI Airports Authority and Grand Turk Cruise Centre are heralded as partly responsible for the rise.
The celebratory week of activities will begin on December 26 at the Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association’s (TCHTA) second annual Maskanoo event in Grace Bay.
TCHTA’sassociation executive Stacy Cox said: “We are looking forward to being part of this significant milestone and are honoured to be promoting the week of activities at Maskanoo.
“We’re encouraging everyone attending Maskanoo to visit the Tourist Board’s booth to learn more about the ‘1,000,000 and Counting – 2011’ celebrations.
“TCHTA would like to thank our hotelmembers who will be providing visitors with rum and fruit punch when they arrive at the ProvidencialesInternational Airport on December 27 until December 30.
“We would like to also thank Bambarra for providing rum cakes on these days as well.”
On December 31, the country’s capital will be the first to celebrate as representatives from the Grand Turk Cruise Centre welcome the 1,000,000th visitor.
John Young of the Grand Turk Cruise Centre said: “2011 has been a very active year for the Cruise Centre.
“There have been some remarkable developments as it relates to cruise tourism in TCI, including the recently passed legislation which allows same day marriages for cruise ship passengers.
“We all hope that this new initiative will see us continue the growth and see more cruise passengers returning to enjoy the islands for longer stays.”
Providenciales will then celebrate as it welcomes the 1,000,001st visitor arriving on board JetBlue.
JetBlue,whose inaugural flight to the TCI took place in February 2011, will be providing the lucky passenger with a return ticket to the destination.
John Smith, CEO for the Turks and Caicos Islands Aviation Authority, played a very instrumental role in securing this new service to the destination.
He said: “The Airports Authority is always eager to promote the destination and 2011 has been very rewarding.
“We saw the arrival of Continental Airlines and JetBlue as well as Caicos Express and we look forward to more airlines coming on board.
“Without the demand these flights would not be possible so we thank every visitor to the Turks and Caicos Islands.”
