GREAT BAY--Tourism performance across the Caribbean in 2025 was not a simple story of winners and losers, because many destinations saw uneven results across airlift, stopovers, and cruise, with growth showing up strongly in certain segments even when regional totals looked flat. Within that wider mix, St. Maarten’s 2025 numbers show the island registering the same kind of double digit momentum being recorded in key pockets of the region, particularly in cruise traffic.
According to St. Maarten’s Department of Statistics (STAT), total Air Passenger Arrivals at Princess Juliana International Airport reached 855,994 in 2025, with STAT noting that the category includes visitors and transfers, reflecting St. Maarten’s role as a hub for nearby islands, including French St. Martin.
Where the double digit story becomes clearest is cruise. STAT reported 1,597,940 cruise visitors in 2025, representing an overall 16% increase compared to 2024, with growth recorded in every quarter of the year. Cruise calls also rose from 513 in 2024 to 592 in 2025, a 15% increase, bringing the destination closer to a milestone of 600 calls.
That pattern mirrors what has been happening elsewhere in the region, where cruise growth has been delivering many of the headline gains. The Bahamas, for example, recorded 10,658,661 cruise visitors in calendar year 2025, a 14.0% increase compared with 2024, even as its air visitor total dipped slightly year on year.
On the stayover side, some Caribbean destinations also posted double digit expansion in 2025. Tourism Analytics reported that Curaçao’s stopover visitors increased 12.6% in calendar year 2025, rising from 700,242 in 2024 to 788,427 in 2025. That kind of increase matters for St. Maarten’s regional context because it shows that strong year-on-year growth did not disappear in 2025, it showed up in specific destinations and segments.
A broader Tourism Analytics roundup, citing international tourism tracking, also suggests the overall climate remained supportive of travel demand in 2025, even as performance varied across markets and destinations. For St. Maarten, the 2025 profile captured by STAT is consistent with that reality: a strong cruise-led lift, steady air volume in a hub-driven airport environment, and continued reliance on its core source markets, especially North America and Europe.
The key takeaway is not that St. Maarten “beat” other destinations, but that its 2025 results place it firmly inside the same regional story, one where double digit gains were being recorded in meaningful parts of the tourism economy, especially cruise, and where destinations that combined strong product demand with connectivity were still able to move their numbers upward.
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