Jamaica expects US$1.9b in tourism earnings during upcoming winter season
/ Our Today
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Destination Jamaica is expecting tourism revenues of US$1.9 billion during the upcoming tourism season.
In addition, the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) is anticipating some 1.5 million vacationers for the winter season, which is good for Jamaica. The revenue and tourism projections were disclosed by Director of Tourism Donovan White during a press conference this past week.
He stated that an increased number of people have shown interest in visiting Jamaica and, as per surveys, an average tourist stay of seven to eight days will hold during the busy winter season, which runs from December to March.
According to the JTB director, “what we have seen is an uptick in the length of stay of visitors to the destination, since we reopened, from 7.1 days to eight days. We have also seen an uptick in the average visitor spend from US$169 per day per visitor to US$180. This is what has allowed us to forecast our revenue projections to just under US$2 billion for the calendar year”.
He explained that these numbers and revenue show that the destination earnings are growing considerable, which is a good thing for Jamaica.
White indicated that the country’s tourism sector is now returning to the same level of performance where it was before COVID-19 struck Jamaica in March 2020.
Disaggregating the expected visitor arrival
The director of tourism is expecting Jamaica to welcome about 4.1 million visitors by the end of 2023. The number of visitors’ further splits into 1.6 million cruise passengers and 2.5 million stopovers, with a revenue out-turn of about US$4.2 billion in earnings.
White mentioned that, “[In] 2019, we [had] 4.2 million visitors, and US$3.7 billion in earnings. So, go forward to 2023, where we are saying 4.1 million visitors, but US$4.2 billion in earnings. So, there’s an uptick of about half a billion dollars in earnings that we anticipate, and this is coming from what we’re seeing in the average spend per visitor as well as the length of stay.”
In the meantime, Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett has called on the JTB to work with the related stakeholders for ensuring that they continuously promote this growth as they are looking ahead to a more favourable opportunity in the future.
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