It will be a very merry Christmas for the Jamaican tourism sector with the island reporting a massive increase in tourist arrivals ahead of Christmas.
“It’s absolutely phenomenal. Especially during a pandemic,” said Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett.
Since Friday, December 17, Jamaica has had over 159 flights into Montego Bay, putting stopover arrivals into the tourism capital at about 25,000 in three days. Saturday’s 9,153 arrivals from 62 flights is the biggest single-day record the island has seen since the airports were reopened on June 15, 2020.
A statement released by the Ministry of Tourism noted that over a three-day period, from December 17 to 20th, an estimated 25,000 passengers passed through the Sangster International Airport (SIA) in Montego Bay. That airport has not seen that many tourists since 2019.
Bartlett said that the number of visitors arriving on Sunday was equally impressive with some 52 flights on record.
“These numbers would be the type of figures we would see in the strongest weekends even in pre-COVID times. We have not even factored in the cruise numbers, which have also been growing by leaps and bounds,” he added.
Bartlett said that barring any fallout from the Omicron variant of the virus, there is every reason to believe that Jamaica will record increase visitor arrivals.
Much of the tourist arrivals are Jamaicans living overseas who were urged by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in 2020, not to travel to the island during Christmas, unless it was necessary. Earlier this month, in relaxing some of the island’s measures, Prime Minister Holness said he was giving all Jamaicans the opportunity to enjoy the holidays safely.
Tourists looking to escape to a tropical destination for the holidays are also flocking to Jamaica, according to the tourism minister.
“Whether it’s the United States, Canada or Great Britain, there’s a lot of interest in Jamaica and its people. Our partners have also been impressed by how we have managed our health and safety protocols. We have also managed to make a lot of inroads in other areas, some as fertile as the Middle East, the Eastern bloc in Europe and even parts of Asia. We have spent our time wisely and now we are seeing the results,” Bartlett said.
Meanwhile, Chief Strategist/Senior Adviser in the Ministry of Tourism, Delano Seiveright, said that Jamaica’s cruise numbers will see an exponential increase in early 2022 when the western Caribbean route is fully opened.
“We share the same itinerary route with Grand Cayman, which is still closed. Cruise shipping should be resuming in Cayman in early February and that’s when we should be seeing the huge Royal Caribbean Oasis-styled vessels coming our way,” he added.
Figures show that Jamaica leads the world in demand (searches for the destination) at 38 percent of 2019 levels, compared to the rest of the world at 24 percent, capacity (air seats flown or scheduled) at 65 percent of 2019 levels, compared to the rest of the world at 44 percent and international air passengers at 45 percent of 2019 levels, compared to the rest of the world at 31 percent. Beyond the increasing visitor numbers, visitors to Jamaica in 2021 are also staying longer and spending more.
Director of Tourism, Donovan White, says that barring no major crises, Jamaica’s tourism industry will see a return to 2019 pre-pandemic levels by 2023, at which point, the island would have welcomed over 4 million visitors.
