US$10 Million in Revenues from Increased Cruise and Stopover Passengers next year

KINGSTON, Jamaica; October 2, 2018: Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett fresh from his visit to London for Jamaica Travel Market, has announced that Jamaica is to benefit from nineteen (19) weeks of stopover and cruise passengers for the winter tourist season in 2019.

This follows commitments from TUI and their Marella cruise line, which is forecasted to inject more than USD10million in revenues, deliver incrementally over 26,000 passengers and see 43,000 beds occupied.

Minister Bartlett noted that “The forecast for increased growth and revenue for Jamaica is exceptional. These additional passengers follows on the heels of securing a record 1.3 million airplane seats out of the Americas for the upcoming winter tourist season. This is the result of strategically strengthening relations with airlift partners, major cruise-lines and investors.”

Marella Cruises (formerly Thomson Cruises) is a British cruise line operated by TUI UK, offering cruise holidays around Europe, the Caribbean, and Asia. 

“Jamaica is buoyed by our continued growth which shows that between January and August of this year, we welcomed 2,953,895 visitors, an increase of 4.6 percent over the same period last year. Cruise visitors accounted for 1,239,835. Our gross foreign exchange earnings for the same period were US$2.2 billion, up 7.4 percent over the same period in 2017.

I commend my team that has been aggressively engaging with our established markets such as Canada, USA, Europe and re-entering markets that we would like to see increased traffic from such as Latin America and Japan,” added Minister Bartlett.