Tourism is now Jamaica’s highest foreign exchange earner, followed by remittances which enjoyed the top position in recent years. The country earned US $2 billion for the calendar year 2007 by attracting approximately three million visitors to its shores.
Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett commented that this is the most impressive performance for any country in the Caribbean. He said that these figures were most persuading. “In February of this year, visitor arrivals were up to 17 per cent on last year, March is also significantly up and bookings for April and May are looking very positive. In fact, we are looking good all the way into summer!”
At the same time he added that “there is some potential for some softening in the fall, but we are working on a number of events that will augment those inflows...even at the tail end of March, winter is indeed looking very rosy”.
It was made clear that there wouldn’t be too much dependence on the U.S. market solely for attracting visitors, but that diversification would be crucial. Consequently, regions such as India, Japan, and China, have been targeted. Additionally, Europe has become a point of focus as last year the region recorded an overall increase of 12.8 per cent in visitor arrivals.
Notably, Spain registered 140.8 per cent. Nonetheless, the United Kingdom still provides the most European visitors to Jamaica, providing 185,657 visitors last year. Bartlett explained that “A lot of marketing work is presently being put into Europe, more particularly Eastern Europe. We are looking at places like Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, and Georgia...the new emerging economies”.
The main market area performances for January to December 2007 based on the number of arrivals into Jamaica were, the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany. Italy, the Caribbean, Latin America and Japan followed.
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