Arrivals into the Cayman Islands for 2013 surged, this is according to data released this week by the Caribbean Tourism Organisation.

The Cayman Islands tourism arrivals totalled 345,387 stopover visitors in 2013, which is a 7.4% increase on 2012.

These figures showed the 2nd largest increased of any Caribbean tourism destination in 2013, followed by Aruba.

Cayman saw the growth of tourist in a number of areas the strongest being Europe and non-traditional source markets like South America.

European arrivals to Cayman rose to 27,813, an increase of 30%, while arrivals from areas outside of the US, UK and Canada, the vast majority of which are South American arrivals, rose by 24.1%.

In 2012, the Cayman Islands received 321,650 tourists, itself a 4.1% increase over the previous year.