For the first time, St Kitts hopes to attract more than one million cruise ship passengers during the 2014/2015 season, according to an announcement from the office of the Prime Minister of the independent Caribbean two-island federation, Dr Denzil Douglas.

The statement said the passengers are expected to arrive at St Kitts’ Port Zante, and the expected numbers represent a 31.5 percent increase over the 2013/2014 season and a total growth over the past eight years of more than 500 percent.

The figure is about three times the 335,000 cruise ship visitors that Bermuda is expecting in 2014.

The mountainous island, situated about 1,300 miles from Miami, is larger than Bermuda at 65 square miles, but its 35,000 population is much smaller.

St Kitts Minister of Tourism Senator Ricky Skerritt said in the announcement: “The fact that we will be welcoming this record number of cruise passengers to St Kitts is a testament to the high quality of our tourism infrastructure and to the partnerships that our destination has forged with industry stakeholders.”

According to the island’s tourist board, the growth is visitor numbers is partly because the island will receive six calls from the Royal Caribbean International’s Quantum of the Seas in its inaugural 2014/2015 season.

St Kitts will also see Disney Cruise Line for the first time since 2009, with the Disney Magic scheduled to make a total of four port calls to the island in 2014/2015.

Inaugural calls are also being made in 2014/2015 by Oceania Cruises’ Insignia and Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Gem and Norwegian Pearl, which together will make 17 calls, it said, and added the cruise lines that are scheduled to make calls to St Kitts in the 2014/2015 cruise ship season include Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Holland America, Norwegian, Princess, P & O, Cunard, Oceania, Seabourn, Aida, Silver Sea, Windstar, Thompson and TUI Cruises.