JTB firing on all cylinders for winter tourist season
Published:Sunday | November 3, 2019 | 12:00 AMDave Rodney - Contributor
The Jamaica Tourist Board’s (JTB) overseas marketing team in the Northeastern United States has been going all out over the past several weeks to make the upcoming winter tourist season a record-breaking one. The agency’s business development ambassadors are on a fiercely aggressive campaign to engage potential travellers as well as professional travel partners stateside. To this end, the board has whipped up excitement for Jamaica at 18 large consumer shows and 27 trade shows across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions. Additionally, there are almost daily outreaches to travel agents with visits and training sessions.
The objective is to keep Jamaica top of mind among consumers and agents. The business development ambassadors also want to make sure that agents have an abundance of updated and accurate information so they are able to perfectly pair tourists with their dream resorts in a dynamic destination where new resorts, attractions and other offerings come on stream on a regular basis.
This year, there is a visible push to dangle all the allure that the island offers to Jamaicans in the diaspora. The JTB knows that returning Jamaicans are big spenders outside of the resort all-inclusive packages, infusing shops, bars, dances, local restaurants, fruit vendors, soup vendors and other small businesses with cash. So, a part of the current messaging targets residents in the diaspora too, nudging them to return home for a visit to reconnect with some of the things they miss most. So far, nine diaspora promotional events have already taken place, and more are to come before year’s end.
As far as arrivals go, Jamaica is sitting pretty in the Northeast. The most recent figures show the Northeast delivered more than half a million tourists to the island from January to August, an impressive 17.5 per cent increase over the corresponding period last year. And, in a show of force for Jamaica, 78 agents and 17 suppliers came out recently to the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott to celebrate the brand, to make sales presentations and to forge new business contacts.
“The region has been enjoying steady growth and airlines and tour operators are expressing strong confidence in Jamaica,” Phillip A. Rose, regional director for the Northeast USA, told The Sunday Gleaner.
“More airline seats are being added from New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore, and this, combined with unrelenting sales activities, should result in further increases this winter.”
Donnie Dawson, the JTB’s deputy director for the Americas, said the energy and the enthusiasm that is being whipped up for Jamaica in the Northeast is being played out across major US gateways, as well as in Canada.
“A lot of hard work has gone into continuously strengthening the brand, and we have full confidence in steady growth for Jamaica as we move towards the 2019-20 winter season,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
“I can’t thank our retail travel agents who always support us enough; and our team of business development ambassadors who pound the pavement every single day to create miracles for Jamaica.”