Durrant Pate/Contributor

Jamaica has a new tourism ambition of attaining eight million combined air and cruise visitors in 2024.

This new target was recently unveiled by Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, who said the island is already anticipating a “tourism boom” next year coming after a spectacular 2023.

“We are going after eight million visitors to Jamaica and US$10 billion in earnings,” Bartlett declared. 

He pointed to the 20,000 new hotel rooms which are being constructed and are now at various some stage of development. These hotel developments concentrated on Jamaica’s North Coast with developments taking place in St Ann, Trelawny and St James. 

Jamaica expects to reach its target numbers through new source markets being opened up as well as expanding existing source markets such as the United States, Canada and Europe. Already Jamaica’s tourism ambitions are running high in Europe, as a new target number of 250,000 visitors out of the United Kingdom and Ireland by 2025. 

If and when this new target is met, it will surpass 2022’s figure of 229,000 UK visitors, which made Jamaica a top destination in the entire Caribbean for British visitors, Bartlett said at an exclusive media event at the World Travel Market in London last month.

He pointed to the new Norse Atlantic Airways service to the Sangster International Airport in Montego, which will aid in the target being reached. This month marked the beginning of the flight service which is set to operate four times weekly from London Gatwick.

Jamaica is currently experiencing a record-breaking year so far in 2023 with projections showing 4 million visitors by the end of the year.