Destination has seen surge of 39.5% for first nine months of 2021

In spite of Jamaica’s fast recovery in tourism, one of the fastest in the world arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, stopover visitor arrivals to destination is trailing by 52 per cent of pre-COVID levels.

However the strong recovery, which has been taking place since Jamaica reopened its borders last year, has seen stopover arrivals for the first nine months of 2021 surging by 39.5 per cent to reach just under a million.

Based on the latest figures from the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), stopover arrivals up to September of this year climbed to 970,435, up from the 695,721 recorded during the comparable period of 2020. However, the latest numbers are still 52 per cent below the pre-COVID levels when 2,020,508 stopover arrivals were recorded in the first nine months of 2019.

The numbers for October and November have not yet been tabulated and released but preliminary data show that the improvement in arrivals continued into those months. Based on the advance numbers, the indications are that the decline against 2019 is now down to just 22 per cent, further evidence of the strong recovery taking place.

The data showed that the September quarter saw the biggest jump in stopover arrivals, growing to 437,890, up from the 114,402 recorded last year. The numbers are significantly down from the pre-COVID levels.

The decline is 30.5 as compared to the 629,825  recorded in 2019. Stopover arrivals in the month of September this year fell 30.4 per cent to 100,654 from 144,583 in comparison to September 2019.

This is however still 251 per cent ahead of the 28,648 arrivals in September last year, which was shortly after the industry reopened to international visitors.