While the United States remains the top source market for the Caribbean, Latin America is leading the Caribbean’s tourism resurgence in 2023.

According to statistics from ForwardKeys, visitors from Latin America are growing and led overseas arrivals to the Caribbean in the first quarter of 2023.

Colombia (+48%), Peru (+21%) and Argentina (+15%) are the three leading markets for the Caribbean.

Airline analysis shows that visitors from Latin America predominantly travel in premium class and that number was up by 87 percent over 2019 figures.

The top markets fueling premium class travel are Ecuador (+432%), Peru (+232%), Colombia (+211%), Mexico (+104%) and Argentina (+101%).

The top destinations for these luxury travelers were Curacao, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the Bahamas.

In delivering the State of the Industry report at the Caribbean Travel Forum on Tuesday in Barbados, Nicola Madden-Greig, President of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) said the increase in visitors from Latin America was fueled in part by Panama as a hub connecting South America and the Caribbean.

Traffic through Panama City grew by 240 percent compared to Miami which was down 50 percent.

The top three destinations for visitors through Panama were Curaçao, Dominican Republic and Aruba.

According to the Caribbean Travel Trends report, a collaboration between the CHTA and Forwardkeys, the Easter period fueled travel from Latin America in 2023 with Colombia, Brazil and Argentina in the top source markets.

The top destinations for those travelers were Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, US Virgin Islands, Curaçao, Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Lucia.