In what he describes as an “ambitious but achievable” target, Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, has revealed that he is pushing for 500,000 visitors to Jamaica from Canada by 2025. Minister Bartlett made the disclosure today (September 19) ahead of his departure to the North American country, where he will be joined by senior tourism officials on a five-day ‘winter marketing blitz’ as Jamaica seeks to engage critical travel partners in the Greater Toronto Area.

“We have an overarching goal to welcome 5 million visitors and earn 5 billion dollars in tourism revenue by 2025. Canada is our third largest market and we are currently at just above the 300,000 mark and getting to where we were in 2010 when we had up to 400,000 visitors coming from Canada. My projections are driven by data, and I have evidence now that the Canadian market is ready to take us to half a million visitors within the next two years,” Minister Bartlett expressed.

“This initiative is about that – getting more airlift. We’re going to be talking with Air Canada, WestJet, Canada Jetlines, our new partners, and others to bolster the airlift out of Canada,” asserted the tourism minister. He noted that this follows discussions held with Canadian travel partners at the just concluded JAPEX (Jamaica Product Exchange) trade show held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre from September 11-13.

While in Canada, Minister Bartlett will meet with the President and faculty at McMaster University and tour the Miss Lou Archives, housed in the university’s library. Additionally, the tourism minister underscored that Canada would play a strategic role in Jamaica’s efforts to engage the Asian visitor market, including India and China. In keeping with this, he will be the guest speaker at a special event organised by Mandarin Holidays, where over 100 Chinese travel agents will be in attendance.

Minister Bartlett’s other engagements will include meetings with executives from Air Canada Vacations, and Canada Jetlines as well as travel agents and tour operators. The tourism minister is also scheduled for numerous interviews with various media entities, ranging from print, television and radio, as he seeks to position Jamaica as a destination of choice for Canadian visitors.

Minister Bartlett is scheduled to depart Canada on Monday, September 25 for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where he will join other global tourism leaders including officials from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in marking World Tourism Day 2023, which will be observed on Wednesday, September 27. The tourism minister noted that Jamaica is slated to be the toast of this year’s celebration as a model of resilience and people-oriented investments. The UNWTO’s theme for World Tourism Day 2023 is “Tourism and Green Investments” which seeks to highlight the need to focus on investing in people, planet and prosperity.

Minister Bartlett noted that: “In Jamaica, Tourism Awareness Week 2023, which runs from September 24 – 30, will be observed under the same theme and will include several activities, beginning with a Thanksgiving Church Service on Sunday, September 24 at the Montego Bay New Testament Church of God in St. James.”

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica; September 14, 2023: Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett has revealed that Jamaica’s tourism outlook for the fall season, September to mid-December, is looking very positive in terms of visitor arrivals, with “strong airlift from the United States.”

Answering questions at a JAPEX media breakfast meeting held at the Jewel Grande Montego Bay Resort & Spa earlier this week Minister Bartlett said “coming out of a historic summer, the US has increased its market share from 63 to 74 percent.”

He noted that the overall picture for this year is that Jamaica has moved ahead of 2019 arrival numbers by 5 percent “with the expectation that we’ll end the year at some 2.9 million visitors, just shy of 200,000 more than 2019, which was our best year. And the earnings would be some 22 percent over 2019,” Mr. Bartlett told journalists.

Meanwhile, he noted that cruise tourism has lagged behind with passenger loads being 24 percent short of the pre-COVID 2019 level. Minister Bartlett says, “in the case of cruise tourism Jamaica expects to be back to 2019 levels by the end of 2024.” The projection is that Jamaica will be about 23 percent below 2019 with the expectation of reaching approximately 1.185 million cruise passengers at the end of this year.

The Minister outlined that the island’s room count is also expected to be increased by 5,000 new rooms. This will include the first 500 of the committed 2,000-room Unico (HardRock) hotel; Princess Grand Jamaica set to open in February with 1000 rooms, Riu adding over 700 rooms and 228 rooms by Marriott in Falmouth. Additionally, ground will be broken for other hotels over the next few months at Richmond in St Ann, Negril, Montego Bay, Paradise, Savanna-la-Mar and also in Trelawny.

Describing the Paradise development as “a major project,” Mr. Bartlett said he was excited “to have a number of local players now becoming involved in the accommodation sub sector because I want to see more of our local players, Jamaicans, become inserted in not just the supply side, which is very important, but also on the demand side with hotel rooms.”

Regarding tapping into new markets, Minister Bartlett identified India as one of the key markets that Jamaica is going after with initial initiatives being received favourably and will be followed up by him with a number of speaking engagements and participation in trade fairs later this year or within the first quarter of 2024.

He said partnerships have already been established in India with a public relations team in place working with Jamaica, which has very strong affinities with that country through sports, for example, “and Chris Gayle has already indicated that he will work with us in helping to bridge some gaps in the Indian market.”

The Minister said Jamaica is also targeting the Indian Diaspora in Canada, the United States, United Kingdom and in the Middle East where, according to him, “they’ve already shown interest and are looking at even putting together special charters to come to Jamaica.”

A number of Indian travel agents and travel writers participated in the just concluded JAPEX (Jamaica Product Exchange) trade show held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre from September 11-13.

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica; Tuesday, September 12, 2023: With a target in sight of earning US$4.1 billion, Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett is quite pleased that Jamaica is having its best year ever in visitors arrivals.

His enthusiasm was shared as the tourism sector celebrated the return of the island’s major travel tradeshow post-pandemic, JAPEX, with an elaborate opening event at Chukka Outpost on the Sandy Bay coastline Monday night. “As we currently stand, we are about to have the best year in the history of tourism in Jamaica for stopover arrivals, 2023,” he exuded.

The record of 3.8 million visitors in less than four years after the COVID-19 pandemic had shut down tourism travel globally has been hailed by Mr. Bartlett as a feat achieved through a solid partnership with the international and local tourism partners who are attending the three-day marketing event at the Montego Bay Convention Centre.

“Jamaica today boasts that it is the number one destination in the entire English-speaking Caribbean and arguably in the entire Americas, thank you,” he told the tourism partners, noting that this had been achieved because of their confidence, continued support and commitment to Jamaica.

Minister Bartlett also informed the tourism stakeholders that investments in Jamaica’s tourism sector remained strong and bullish and “next year alone we’ll be having 2,000 new rooms for you to sell for us when you go back to your destinations.” There will also be new attractions and Jamaica remained committed to safety, security and seamlessness, he assured them.

Attendees to JAPEX 2023 are from all across the globe, including the USA, Canada, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Minister Bartlett outlined that next week he will be visiting Canada as well as the United Kingdom to further boost travel there through the Jamaica Marketplace trade event.