The UK market has also performed well during the months of June and July with visitor numbers up by three per cent and positive projections for the rest of the summer months.
Speaking at a Press briefing at the Ministry of Tourism’s New Kingston office, the Minister shared that, “it has definitely has been our best summer ever. We had 884,324 visitors compared to the 834,292 from the period May to August in 2017. These figures contributed to total visitor arrivals (May to August) of 1,312,494, which was a 4.4 percent increase over the same period last year.”
“The preliminary data also shows that earnings up to the end of August are over $2 billion. Expenditure from tourists for the first eight months is $2.2 billion. We are trending well ahead of the 3 billion mark for the end of the calendar year,” says the Minister.
Provisional estimates indicate that between January and August of this year, the country welcomed 2,955,007 visitors, an increase of 4.7 per cent over the same period last year. This figure comprised 1,714,060 stop over arrivals and 1,240,947 cruise visitors.
“The projections that we made for growth last year was for five per cent per annum for five years. Last year we broke all of that because we got 12 per cent – that is a phenomenal achievement. We are excited about that prospect and we are seeing that we are going to get to that mark,” said the Minister.
Minister Bartlett also disclosed that his Ministry intends to build on the successes of 2017, which saw 4.3 million visitors visiting the island. This was a 12.1 per cent increase over 2016, with US$3 billion in revenue. It was also the first time in the country’s history that Jamaica welcomed more than 500,000 new visitors in a single calendar year.
“We do not want to take this success for granted and we are aggressively targeting new and traditional markets to attain double-digit growth and promote Jamaica as the ideal winter tourism destination,” said the Minister.
