Tourist arrivals on the rise

The Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) is projecting that the island will welcome approximately 800,000 visitors between late June to the end of August, with destination earnings set to exceed US$1.1 billion.

Director of Tourism Donovan White said the figures, respectively, represent 85 per cent of the pre-pandemic (2019) arrival levels, and more than 90 per cent in revenues for that year's summer period.

"That will feed into our projections ... at 2.2 million tourists for calendar year 2022," he said.

"What is interesting about this is that ... we have been able to re-forecast full recovery to September 2023, versus the first quarter of 2024 and that is a good thing," he pointed out, attributing the rebound of the industry to the hard work by the various stakeholders and diversifying markets to attract more visitors to the island.

White said another important component of the recovery process is longer stay by tourists.

"Our length of stays has now moved from 8 1/2 nights to 9.2 nights, which is about a nine per-cent increase, and we have also seen the spend-per-visitor, per- day, increase from US$169 to about US$182," he indicated.

"What that means for Jamaica and our recovery is that our ability to have destination revenues outpace the recovery of visitors is a real fact and it is part of why we are so extremely bullish about bringing forward the recovery faster than planned," White said.

"We have spent [a lot of time] in the marketplace ensuring that we are not only tapping into [traditional markets], but we are also tapping into new marketplaces and finding new partners to work with us," he added.