Students of tourism have long recognized the Caribbean area as a popular tourist objective. The visitors have come primarily from North America; as Burkart and Medlik ob‐served, “…the principal tourist reception areas in the world lie up to about 1,000 miles or so from the generating source or, to put it another way, at about two hours flying time”. The Caribbean's large and expanding tourist trade may be attributed to, in addition to this obviously significant factor of proximity, the physical geographic factors of tropical climate, sandy beaches and varied topography. The Caribbean's cultural geographic assets include its diversity of colonial heritage and its variety of racial and ethnic populations. The unique economic and social situation of this region of the world, together with the continuing role of the U. S. as a prime generating source, will probably result in continued encouragement of and catering to this impressive tourist trade. Of particular note to students of tourism is the rising volume of cruiseship traffic within the Caribbean. This aspect of tourist trade illustrates some significant interrelationships of transport and tourism. This study's objectives are the analysis and interpretation of contemporary cruise‐ship traffic patterns, specifically in terms of studying the relationships which are apparent among various ports of origin and their related ports of call.
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