The COVID pandemic threatened to incapacitate Jamaica’s largest foreign exchange earning industry, tourism, but it has managed to come roaring back with visitors seeking Jamaica out.

Our Today caught up with the Jamaica Tourist Board’s (JTB) Director of Tourism, Donovan White at the Royalton Hotel in Negril, Westmoreland where he expounded on the forecast of blue skies for the Jamaican tourism industry.

“The numbers are looking extremely positive from the end of August. September was unusually robust (165.5 thousand visitors for that month). September is traditionally tough, but it proved to be a record month for us. Some hotels saw 92 per cent occupancy for that month.”

Said White: “The calendar year will end with us breaking the three million arrivals mark, which will include some 700,000 cruise visitors.”

The JTB boss pointed out this is significant in and of itself, given the cruise ship business only came back in May this year, meaning Jamaica lost the first four months of cruise tourism and the first six weeks of the year of the winter season (January and February) to the Omicron strain of the virus.

Particularly heartening this year is that Destination Jamaica’s earnings are outpacing the recovery of visitors which, put another way, means visitors are staying longer and spending more.

White elaborated: “We now have visitor length of  stay growing from 6.9 nights to eight nights per visitor and their spend has grown from US$161 per visitor per day to US$182. We are looking at gross revenues of US$4 billion for the year, which would be a 13 per cent increase on 2019’s earnings figure.

“That sets us up for growth in 2023. I think 2022 should be around 95 of 2019’s arrivals and 110 per cent of that year’s earnings. We anticipate that with a good winter season not impacted by climatic episodes  or other momentous disruptions will allow our fiscal carriage from April 2022 to March 2023 to be somewhere in the region of 3.7 million visitors and US$4.2 million in earnings for the fiscal period.

“That would spell as close to a full recovery of our tourism product and, importantly, sets us up for growth earlier than we anticipated. Last year we were talking about full recovery in the first quarter of 2024. This doesn’t just set up Jamaica’s tourism product but also the economy of the country.”

So what is the plan going forward?

While protecting existing markets, the JTB is eying new markets to add incremental growth. White is of the view that Jamaica must begin the conversation about investing more dollars into its tourism product to grow new marketplaces. To that end, the JTB is talking with tour operators in Eastern Europe where there are plenty of unique and boutique operators looking to engage with Jamaica and send travellers its way.

The aim now is to connect them to suppliers in the trade and to build relationships in order to better harness growth.

“Brand Jamaica is stronger than ever. The work we have done in conjunction with what our athletes have accomplished on the global stage as well as our entertainment community and how it continues to bring the culture of Jamaica to the people of the world has helped Jamaica become even more of a dynamic brand.

“We in tourism have been able to harness those characteristics in the campaigns we build for our marketplaces. This makes it easier for us to walk into new markets and introduce ourselves because we would have pre-existed in the minds of people.

“A tour operator was telling me, that it is easy for her to sell Jamaica and in fact she wanted to extend her stay here because there is so much for her to learn and take to her business so she could better package travel to Jamaica,” explained White.

As a former senior vice president of telecoms giant Flow Jamaica, White knows the importance of a team working effectively, ensuring the sum of its parts function as a collective. He proudly proclaims that his team at the JTB is world class, continuing to exhibit resilience. Drawing attention to the many disruptions that have impacted travel, the JTB has learnt new things and persevered.

“The JTB were amazing throughout this pandemic. Watching it rebound, change course, is a testimony to its capabilities through the many years. We have had to change strategy several times during this testing time. The JTB would be nothing without the people who serve it. I recently went to the Georgia Convention Center in Atlanta where, with our Delta partners, I met with some 1,200 travel agents. To hear them respond in a most vociferous way to Jamaica was heart-warming.

“The team has taken on the task of recovery but more importantly see their responsibility as how do we grow and where do we grow from next.“

So how does the director of the JTB see Jamaica in comparison to other Caribbean destinations?

“I was at the recent CTO Board meetings held in The Cayman Islands and I can tell you that the destinations are coming back. Jamaica made a bold move by opening up since June of 2020 and of note, not closing thereafter. We took some blows for that but we believed in our product. We put the safety of Jamaicans and visitors first.

“We re-engaged our airline partners much earlier and gave them a roadmap in terms of the plan going forward. They brought the flights back much earlier than they did with other destinations across the region. Everyone is bouncing back at their own pace. Some of the disruptions in the trade have also caused the slowing down of some destinations fully returning, for example some of the airlines are struggling with crews and finding people for work. That’s a real issue. So, while there are airlines that would probably be putting in more frequencies and more routes over the last two and a half years, they have had to slow their return and be strategic. As our chairman says, ‘You fish where the fish are swimming so you get a good catch.’

“We have been fortunate, but we have been bold. We are seeing the fruits of that posture as well as being strategic at the same time.”