Tourism figures remain hot as winter season nears
Published:Wednesday | October 19, 2022 | 12:11 AMJanet Silvera/Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
With the start of the winter tourist season weeks away, local tourism stakeholders are forecasting that the buoyancy in stopover arrivals will continue into 2023.
Aiming to surpass 2019 pre-pandemic numbers – the best year in travel – the optimism has been bolstered by new contracts, the re-establishment of old partnerships, and the opportunities arising from the recent Caribbean Travel Market (CTM) trade show in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The winter commences on December 15, 2022 and will end on April 30, 2023.
“We are actually meeting to pace 2019 numbers and growing and this is something that has been the same across all our source markets,” Holiday Inn’s director of sales and revenue, Carol Linton-Dunbar, told The Gleaner during CTM.
Linton-Dunbar says that from all indications they will surpass their 2019 performance.
“It just shows that we are post-COVID, and we are happy about that,” she added.
Half Moon’s director of marketing and sales, Sharon Logan, is just as upbeat.
“Travel is back and ... our resort is full for Christmas, while requests are coming in for the winter,” she said.
Her tradeshow colleague, Round Hill Hotel and Villa’s Karesha Forbes, was as confident, noting they will surpass 2019 winter season numbers.
A meeting with a new tour operator was among several such engagements Forbes had during the show.
“What Caribbean Marketplace has shown is how important relationships garnered over the years are. Those were the people who came through for us,” she stated.
BUSY UPCOMING SEASON
The positivity was just as embracing by the Ocho Rios, St Ann-based Jamaica Inn’s managing director, Kyle Mais, and his director of sales, Geraldine Ridley, who both said they were quietly confident the upcoming season would be busy, having met with old and new tour operators from countries such as Italy.
Mais said that pushing for inter-Caribbean travel is very important to the mix, explaining this was particularly significant when there are challenges in one market and there is the ability to fall back on another.
Now in its 40th year, CTM is staged by the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), and although it did not attract as many suppliers as in previous years, the organisers managed to have 800 registered attendees, 53 of whom were new buyers to the event.
CHTA President Nicola Madden-Greig said she was pleased with the outcome, especially after two postponements as a result of the Omicron surge and Hurricane Ian. She noted strong participation from the buyers as everybody was anxious to forecast what they are expecting for 2023.
The three properties she represents – the Holiday Inn, Courtleigh Hotel and Suites and The Jamaica Pegasus – signed a number of new contracts coming out of Latin America, which was a very positive sign for Jamaica.
“Being able to meet face-to-face once again and just have the sidebar conversations and the strategic direction, nothing beats that – not Zoom, not WebEx, as much as we love technology. Nothing beats face-to-face when it comes to real positioning in tourism,” she argued.
Smaller hotels such the 92-room Deja Resorts in Montego Bay, St James, are also expecting the buoyancy from summer to roll over into the winter.
“I think we will surpass 2019, and if we don’t and we do 95 or 85 per cent of what we did in 2019, we will be happy,” Dahlia Walker, the hotel’s operations manager, told The Gleaner.
The resort’s general manager, Robin Russell, who is tipped to take the reins as Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) president on October 29, said the trip to Puerto Rico was fruitful.
“We’ve been able to re-establish some older contacts, as well as made new contacts, so it was well worth the trip coming,” said Russell.
Jamaica Tours’ Noel Sloley Jr also re-established links with old business partners he had not seen in years and is looking forward to a strong winter.
In the meantime, Ocean Coral Spring, the new kid on the block, which was named Expedia’s ‘Most Engaged Partner’ in the Caribbean, was also negotiating contracts for their newest product, Ocean Eden Bay, with tour operators in Puerto Rico.
“Discussions were fruitful,” Tanesha Clarke told The Gleaner.
In the meantime, Chukka Caribbean Adventures is preparing for the season and their team announced a number of new tour experiences to meet the demand. The attraction operator has introduced rafting at Good Hope and Lethe and now operates hubs in their various locations.