Tourism is the best engine to provide foreign exchange and jobs during the COVID pandemic and this winter season should see increased number of visitors coming to Jamaica.
Just before COVID shuttered the world in spring 2020, Jamaica saw 4.2 million tourists coming to its shores. This year it is expected to close the year at 1.5 million, a significant drop but nonetheless encouraging given the circumstances.
The Ministry of Tourism led by Ed Bartlett, the Jamaican Tourist Board (JTB) and all industry stakeholders have made a herculean effort demonstrating great ingenuity to keep tourism going while adhering to protocols. Here, Jamaica has remained open for business not losing substantial ground to neighbouring competitors.
Earlier this week senior executives at Expedia, the biggest online travel agency in the world and the biggest producer of tourism business for Jamaica, assured Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett and other senior government officials that “ their data clearly shows impressive room night and passenger growth with both metrics surpassing the same time in 2019”.
The digital travel portal company also noted that America remains the overall top search origin market for Jamaica.
In a further boost for Jamaica’s tourism product, CEO of Carnival Corporation, Arnold Donald committed 110 cruise trips brining in around 200,000 vaccinated visitors to Jamaica between October 2021 and April 2022.
The Chairman of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC), Keith Duncan sees a bright future for Jamaican tourism saying: “We are seeing significant recovery in tourism, hearing numbers like 60 to 80 per cent of 2019 in terms of visitor arrivals. Tourism is moving in the right direction.
“Any area of the economy that can run their businesses by observing the protocols in a very disciplined way will thrive. Tourism has put together its resilient corridor, worked together with the Ministry of Health, TPDCO, the Government and done well. It has organized itself into a Resilient Corridor where it has kept COVID cases to a minimal with a positivity rate of just 1.1 per cent. Now that is a major achievement.”
The Government of Jamaica’s tax revenues April to July 2021 were J$17billion ahead of budget and 39.4 per cent ahead of the previous year due in the main to recovery in travel and tourism.
Tourism receipts increased for the June quarter with 371,270 tourists visiting Jamaica relative to the 7,188 visitors in 2020.
The Resilient Corridor continue to prove effective and Jamaica is still a major tourism province in this hemisphere. The winter season is expected to see an increase in arrivals as both Americans and Europeans look to get away from harsh climates and take a break from living in confinement for the better part of two years.
The Ministry of Tourism is estimating total stopover arrivals of around 875,000 for the period January to April 2022, using a load factor of 80 per cent of all seats available to the destination.
It could very well be the case that Jamaica could get north of that figure given vaccination rates and eagerness to vacation.
Speaking on Friday at a Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) press briefing, Governor of the Bank of Jamaica, Richard Byles said: “We anticipate positives coming from an increase in receipts from tourist arrivals over the winter season.
We want to see tourism recover with a big employment component for the economy as well as providing foreign currency.
“As the remittance flows taper off somewhat from the very high levels from t last year, we need to see those tourism receipts pick up the slack.”
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