The island has already welcomed 2 million stopover and cruise guests for the reason that begin of the 12 months.

Talking yesterday (June 20) throughout his Sectoral Debate closing presentation within the Home of Representatives, the tourism minister offered essential knowledge to help the historic post-pandemic strides being made within the tourism sector.

“Already earlier than even finishing the primary six months of this 12 months we’ve already obtained a mixed 2 million stopover and cruise guests with report earnings of US$2 billion, a whopping 18% above the 2019 earnings for a similar time interval. It ought to be no shock then that Jamaica is bracing for the very best summer season vacationer season ever,” Minister Bartlett mentioned.

“Jamaica welcomed roughly 3.3 million guests in 2022 and registered a exceptional US$3.7 billion restoration of earnings in comparison with the pre-COVID earnings of 2019. Jamaica can be experiencing an increase in summer season 2023 air journey bookings by 33% as in comparison with summer season 2022 in response to knowledge offered by one of many world’s main journey knowledge analytics corporations, ForwardKeys,” said Minister Bartlett.

The Tourism Minister additionally gave a quick overview of his latest journey to the US the place he engaged with key companions comparable to representatives from the Caribbean Tourism Group (CTO) and cast a partnership settlement between the International Tourism Resilience and Disaster Administration Centre (GTRCMC) and George Washington College. Minister Bartlett added:

“Our U.S. engagements included a collection of conferences and discussions with main tourism stakeholders within the airline, cruise and tour operator sub-sectors together with Delta Airways, Royal Caribbean Group and Expedia.”

“These conferences confirmed that we’re definitely on monitor to report the very best summer season in our historical past, particularly contemplating the guests coming from America,” the Minister mentioned.

Jamaica’s major supply market, the US, represents 1.2 million of the 1.4 million seats which have been secured for the upcoming summer season journey season, representing a 16% improve over the island’s earlier finest, recorded in 2019.