Love Catalina Island Tourism Authority recently released the visitor counts for September.
Overall, the numbers were good.
However, visitor counts were down among cross channel carrier passengers, private boat passengers, and air passengers.
“September visitation increased year-over-year by 13.8% or 11,687 visitors,” according to the non-profit group’s website.
“September’s total in-bound passenger count was above the three, five and ten-year averages of 83,974, 90,359 and 94,369 by 14.6%, 6.5% and 2.0% respectively,” according to Love Catalina.
“Passengers arriving by sea, totaled 93,217 for the month and were up 15.4% from last year,” according to Love Catalina.
However, the news was not exclusively positive.
“Cross Channel Passenger counts were down year-over-year by 1.0% or a decrease of 743 people,” according to Love Catalina.
“Cross Channel Passengers made up 73.53% of total monthly arrivals,” according to Love Catalina.
“Cruise passenger counts totaled 14,837,” according to Love Catalina.
“There were 1,257 cruise passengers in September 2021,” according to Love Catalina.
“September Cruise Passenger counts were above the three and five-year averages by 176.6% and 32.6% respectively, but below the ten-year average by 10.7%. Note multi-year averages are greatly impacted by the lack of cruise ships calling during COVID-19 suspension of operations,” the website said.
“Cruise Passengers made up 15.42% of total monthly arrivals,” the website said.
“The number of Cruise Ships calling on Avalon was 7,” according to Love Catalina.
“Private Boater Passenger counts were down from last year by 5.2% @ 7,724 vs. 8,148,” according to Love Catalina.
“Private Boaters Made up 8% of total monthly arrivals,” according to Love Catalina.
“September’s number of Vessels Anchored was up 43.9% @ 164 vs 114 last year,” according to Love Catalina.
“Combined in-bound air passenger counts for September totaled 3,119, down 19.9% from 3,896 in 2021,” according to Love Catalina.
“September Private Aircraft Passengers made up 1.67% of total monthly arrivals,” according to Love Catalina.
“Helicopter Passenger counts were down year-over-year by 24.6% @ 1,435 vs. 1,903,” according to the website.
“September Helicopter Passengers made up 1.49% of total monthly arrivals,” according to the website.
