Bartlett cautiously optimistic about tourism’s performance for 2021
Published:Monday | January 4, 2021 | 12:13 AMJanet Silvera/Senior Gleaner Writer
Despite reeling from a $76 billion loss in earnings and a 2.3 million decline in visitor arrivals, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett says not only was 2020 a watershed moment for his industry, but that Jamaica emerged from it the epitome of “tourism resilience”.
His assessment comes as a new highly contagious variant of COVID-19 triggered a ban on passenger flights into the island from the United Kingdom, one of the island’s main tourist markets. Four cases of the new variant were discovered among 20 positive cases as 302 persons touched down on the final flight before the ban kicked in late last month. Initially set for two weeks, the ban has been extended until January 31.
In his end-of-year review, Bartlett said that following a record-breaking 2019, tourism receipts for January and February 2020 had indicated that the sector was growing at a rate of 5.2 per cent, only to be thwarted by the COVID-19 pandemic in March, triggering a precipitous decline in tourist arrivals and earnings for 2020.
“If that trend had held, we would have welcomed more than 5 million visitors and earned a historic US$ 5 billion by year end,” Bartlett said.
“The country welcomed just over 1.1 million visitors in the first ten months of 2020, which was considerably less than the 3.4 million visitors over the same period in 2019,” the minister reflected.
He said the impact of tourism’s decline in Jamaica has been compounded by what he described as its “undiversified economy”, as other “key sources of income” namely – foreign direct investments and remittances – are also at risk, with primary suppliers the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, also facing economic shock.
“Undiversified economies like ours also mean more pronounced impact for our people, economy and future from prolonged tourism decline. Amid its disruptive effect, however, this crisis has presented us with a unique opportunity to craft a new vision for the future of the sector – one which will be built around inclusiveness, safety, security and seamlessness … ,” he said.
Bartlett said that his ministry will continue to pursue recovery strategies, including the Tourism Linkages Network’s Agri-Linkages Exchange Project and the Rediscover Jamaica campaign implemented to entice Jamaicans to take up staycation packages as international tourist arrivals plummeted.
He said that the Rediscover Jamaica strategy has allowed some hotels to make up for the shortfall in international visitors, especially during some of the usual peak periods.
“We anticipate that this strategy will not be short-lived, but will be incorporated into the business models of most local hotels in the future, considering the expectation that the post-COVID tourism sector is likely to become more inward-looking,” he stated.
On the COVID-19-mitigation front, Bartlett said Jamaica also emerged as a world leader in developing innovative responses such as the tourism resilient corridors, which successfully guided the reopening of the sector locally.
Looking to the future, he re-emphasised that he intends to make the case for tourism workers globally to be considered for early vaccination so that the sector can quickly recover.
“While we originally anticipated that industry would fully bounce back by 2023 or 2024 [based on the return of all airlift and cruise passengers], we are now cautiously optimistic that we may be able to see an early significant boost in 2021 if the vaccine is highly successful and becomes readily available,” he said.