Forward Keys Insights: Competitive Caribbean Destinations in 2025

1. Context & Overview

• ForwardKeys, in partnership with the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA), published the “Caribbean Travel Trends 2025” report.
  

  
  

• The report draws on air-ticketing and flight-search data (for example, flight searches for travel July-September 2025) to measure travel-intent, emerging source markets and destination competitiveness.
  

• As global tourism competition intensifies (with Asia reopening, etc.), Caribbean destinations must sharpen strategies around connectivity, segmentation and marketing to maintain and grow market share.

2. Top Performing Caribbean Destinations for 2025

• The report places the Dominican Republic as the leading Caribbean destination by flight-search volume for summer travel (July–September 2025) in the region   with 31.9 % share of all flight searches to the Caribbean. Year-on-year growth of about +7 %. 

• Puerto Rico shows a strong surge   holding about 16.6 % share of searches and a year-on-year increase of +44 %.
  

• Other destinations growing: the Bahamas, Aruba, Curaçao and so on. For example: Aruba +6.4 % in flight-searches.
  

• For Barbados (Barbados) the increase is more modest   about a 2.5 % increase in flight-search volume for Q3 2025 compared to the same period previous year.

3. Emerging Source Markets & Growth Drivers

• Source markets beyond the U.S./Canada are sharpening. For example: Canada demonstrates travel-intent growth of +22 % year-on-year for Q3 2025.
  
  

• Latin American source markets are showing strong momentum: Mexico, Colombia, Brazil seeing double-digit increases in intent toward Caribbean destinations.
  
  

• Major events and cultural/sporting programming are influencing travel-intent: Example- Bad Bunny’s residency in Puerto Rico and the Cricket World Cup in Barbados. These events help lift demand significantly.
  

4. Connectivity, Segmentation & Competitive Advantage

• Air-connectivity remains a critical factor: The report highlights under-utilised and underserved routes (e.g., Montreal-Caribbean, Mexico City-Caribbean) where growth is possible.
  

• Segmentation matters:
  

 Family travel: Growing strongly in destinations like Curaçao (family-segment arrivals up      +38 % in 2024).

Business and high-yield travel: Although business travel overall is slower to recover, premium-class travel (First/Business cabin) is showing larger increases (e.g., +39 % YOY in some cases) in the Caribbean.

• Multi-destination travel within the Caribbean is increasing as intra-regional connectivity improves (air-capacity within Caribbean up +20 % year-on-year in first half 2024). 

5. Strategic Implications for Destinations & Stakeholders

From the data and trend-analysis, several strategic take-aways emerge for how Caribbean destinations can remain competitive:

• Prioritise air-route development: Enhance direct flights from high-growth source markets (Canada, Latin America) and improve intra-Caribbean connectivity to capture multi-destination trips.
  

• Target high-value segments: Family travel, premium/luxury travellers, event-driven visitors are rising   tailoring products and marketing accordingly can yield higher returns.
  

• Leverage events & experiences: Major events (sports, culture, entertainment) are strong levers for visibility and booking-intent   destinations should plan event pipelines strategically.
  

• Diversify source-market mix: Dependence on traditional markets (U.S., UK) is shifting   Latin America, Canada and other emerging markets should be prioritised for marketing efforts.
  

• Focus on sustainable growth: As growth rates moderate (e.g., Caribbean overall +10 % H1 2024) compared to 2019, destinations must balance visitor volumes with quality, community impact and environment.

6. Key Risks & Considerations

• Although growth is positive, the region faces slowing growth momentum compared to earlier recoveries: For the first half 2024, Caribbean arrivals are up +10 % YOY but +13 % above 2019   which is lower than some other regions.
  

• Connectivity constraints: Even with improvements, many routes remain underserved; without resolving these, destinations may lose momentum to competitors.
  

• Market shifts: European source markets are lagging in some cases; many travellers are looking beyond “sun & beach” for more experiential travel.
  

• Competition increases: As destinations everywhere reopen and reinvent, the Caribbean must maintain its edge in terms of value, accessibility and experience.
  

• Data-enabled strategy needed: Destinations that succeed will be those that use intelligence (e.g., ForwardKeys data) to respond rapidly to changing traveller behaviour.

7. Practical Take-aways for Tourism Professionals

For destination managers, hotel chains, resorts and tourism marketers, here are practical action points based on the report:

• Monitor flight-search trends and seat-capacity changes to pinpoint high-growth origin cities and plan marketing campaigns accordingly.
  

• Develop packages and messaging for family groups (multi-generational), premium travellers and multi-destination Caribbean itineraries.
  

• Secure and promote events (sports, culture, concerts) which can trigger large uplifts in interest; align destination branding with event calendar.
  

• Strengthen collaborations with airlines to open underserved routes (e.g., Latin America Caribbean, Canada Caribbean) and to promote multi-leg trips within the region.
  

• Track and report data: Use flight-search/air-ticket data to benchmark performance, assess origin-market shifts, understand cabin-class trends (economy vs premium) and align product-development accordingly.

8. Summary & Outlook

In summary: ForwardKeys’ 2025 insights highlight that the Caribbean remains a competitive and attractive travel region, but competition is rising and strategic differentiation is now essential. Destinations such as the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are leading in search-volume and growth, while others (e.g., Aruba, Curaçao, Belize) show strong niche growth. Source-markets are evolving, connectivity remains a key competitive lever, and segmentation (family, premium, event travellers) is increasingly important.

Looking ahead to the rest of 2025: Destinations that combine improved access (air-routes), high-value experiences, targeted marketing and event-driven programming are likely to capture a larger share of global travel-demand. Those that rely on past models without dynamic adaptation risk losing ground.

If you like, I can pull out a ranked list of 10 Caribbean destinations with their 2025 performance metrics (flight-search shares, growth %, key source markets) as per the ForwardKeys data. Would you like that?