US Tourists saved Jamaica from Bankruptcy

Photo: Unsplash

With business in Jamaica booming again, Minister Bartlett credited and thanked loyal visitors from the United States for keeping tourism to the Caribbean open during the COVID pandemic.

At a press conference tonight on the sideline of the Caribbean Tourism Organization meeting in the Cayman Islands, the minister said: “American Tourists saved us from bankruptcy.”

As you may already be aware, Jamaica has been leading the recovery of the travel industry in the Caribbean region and, indeed, the world.  We are extremely grateful to be in this position, due in part to the lasting appeal of our product.

It is also due to the positive news coverage generated and the hard work of our tourism organizations, stakeholders, and partners to drive visitors to our island.

This demonstrates that Jamaica’s travel industry is resilient and on the cusp of a full recovery.

To see this, we need to look no further than our airlift, with stopover arrivals continuing to increase.  Since our reopening, we have welcomed over 3.5 million stopover arrivals today, and for the first half of this year, January to July, we have welcomed over 1.4 million stopover arrivals.

For July 2022 alone, preliminary numbers indicate that we will see an estimated 10% increase in stopover arrivals compared to July 2019.

We are also projecting a return to pre-Covid stopover arrivals figures by 2023. Which, of course, is music to my ears.  Reggae music, that is, specifically.

The following chart will show you more specific monthly numbers for the winter and year-to-date periods for 2019-2022.  You’ll note that for the summer of 2022, we are looking at growth over the same period in 2019.

With summer figures for stopovers and visitor expenditure exceeding 2019 levels, summer 2022 has been record-breaking and produced the best summer for tourism that we have ever experienced in the history of Jamaica.

A huge part of our success comes from the great performance in our tourism capital, Montego Bay. A recent Travel Outlook Report by ForwardKeys highlighted that Montego Bay is the city showing the top level of summer travel recovery for 2022.

Our tourism capital achieved a positive growth of 23 percent, higher than all other Caribbean destinations, with the region as a whole leading the travel recovery globally during the year.

In terms of where our visitors are coming from, you can see on this next slide that the US continues to provide the lion’s share of arrivals, with about 75% of all arrivals from the country, primarily from the Northeast.  Following that, Canada and the UK make up approximately another 22% with other markets following.

Cruise tourism also resumed as of August 2021 and has been rebounding.  Cruise passenger arrivals for the first six months of the year, June 2022, have been our highest performing month and the month posted figures ahead of 2019 levels.

Looking ahead, you can see that we are forecasting that we will exceed 2019 overall visitor spend levels this year, with arrivals returning to growth for 2023.  We remain on track to hit the 5 million visitors mark by 2025 with visitor spending of over USD 5 Billion.

So you see, Jamaica’s tourism sector is recovering nicely. We’ve seen our airlift expand, new US gateways open, and a return of cruising with all ports open.

In-person travel for events has also returned with strong attendance numbers for events such as Reggae Sumfest.  In addition, we welcomed a large group of potential investors from the Middle East as we aim to grow the sector and diversify our markets.

And investment in Jamaica’s tourism product continues, with approximately 8,000 new rooms to be constructed within the next 2-5 years.  These include a 2,000-room Princess Hotel, the 260-room Sandals Dunn’s River, and a third RIU hotel with 700 rooms.

We expect groundbreaking on the 2,000-room Hard Rock Hotel and several other properties.  This all follows on the heels of the opening of the ROK Hotel Kingston this summer and the renovation currently underway at Couples San Souci, which should be completed by December 2023.

As I previously mentioned, we are looking to diversify our markets, forging partnerships in Africa and the Middle East for aviation services. We are in discussions with Emirates Airlines to develop a route from the UAE.

Current travel trends also continue to be booking, with tour operator searches for travel up 38% for trips within the next 30 days and 62% for travel in the next 31+ days, so people are planning to travel to Jamaica further in advance than they were previously.

However, while most trips are booked more than 31 days in advance, we continue to see bookings for last-minute travel at just over 16%.

And the demand for Jamaica keeps getting better. Amadeus’ 2021 report indicated that Jamaica leads the world in-
-Demand (searches)
-Air Seat Capacity Recovery
-International Air Passengers, and
-Travel Agent GDS Bookings

Additionally, travelers coming to Jamaica are highly satisfied with their visits, scoring the destination at 4.66 out of a possible 5 in terms of overall satisfaction, with approximately 73% reporting that they were very satisfied.

These visitors also rated our destination attributes, with the top five attributes being scenery, beaches, culture, the attitude of the people at 68%, and accommodation facilities.

And a whopping 79% would recommend Jamaica to their friends.

Jamaica is open for business and perfect for more investments. We continue to build back stronger and create a more sustainable and resilient future for the sector that aligns with emerging consumer demands.

source: eTN