The tourism industry continued to generate robust exponential growth with yet another record-breaking year.
Visitor Arrivals and Earnings
• The island welcomed approximately 4.3 million visitors.
• Earnings totalled some US$3.7 billion
• New Cruise Shipping Terminal at Port Royal and the Redevelopment of Port Royal began.
Market/Airlift Expansion
• Thousands of additional airline seats were negotiated for the 2019/20 Winter Season, which served to expand traditional markets, while building out new locations.
• December saw LATAM Airlines inaugurating three weekly flights out of Chile and other South American countries to Montego Bay. This is in addition to 11 weekly flights that were already being offered by Copa Airlines between Panama and Jamaica.
Human Capital Development
• The third cohort of 415 candidates graduated from the Jamaica Centre for Tourism Innovation (JCTI).
• Launch of the Tourism Workers Pension Fund.
Destination Assurance and Sustainability
• Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo) spearheaded an intensive security audit of all hotels and attractions.
• Among the proposed outcomes is the development of a Manual on Tourism Ethics.
Building Resilience
• Jamaica and United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) hosted the second Global Conference on ‘Jobs and Inclusive Growth: Small and Medium Tourism Enterprises (SMTEs)’.
• The Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC) was officially launched in January.
Based at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus, the Centre is tasked with creating, producing and generating toolkits, guidelines and policies to handle recovery processes following man-made and natural disasters that affect tourism and threaten economies and livelihoods.
• The Ministry hosted the second Tourism Resilience Summit of the Americas to further examine and explore the experiences, best practices and lessons learnt from tourism climatic resilience initiatives around the world.