Tourism Recovery Faster Than Expected – Minister Bartlett

• Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett, says the recovery of the tourism sector is taking place faster than anticipated with arrivals for the year now projected at 1.8Mn visitors up from the previous estimate of 1.61Mn. If this is realized, total visitor arrivals would be 2.43Mn below the total 4.23Mn arrivals reported in 2019, but 0.47Mn above total arrivals in 2020. He credited the strong performance to Jamaica’s management of the pandemic, noting that the “quality of the product was maintained”, which has “done us well”. 
• He noted that over the last three months, weekend arrivals have been significant, averaging 15,000 visitors over the three-day period, and with new flights coming into the island, the numbers are poised to increase even further. This, he said, means that jobs and revenue flows were coming back at a much faster rate. 
• John Byles, the chairman of the Tourism Resilient Corridors Committee (TRCC) and Vice President for Tourism in the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica (PSOJ), said that if the current growth trajectory for stopover arrivals continues, coupled with the expected return of the cruise ships in the fall season, Jamaica could report total arrivals equivalent to its pre-COVID numbers “from summer all the way into the winter”.

(Source: JIS)