Bartlett projects tourism earnings to top US$5b in 2023

JAMAICA IS poised to rake in a projected US$5 billion in earnings from tourism for the 2023 calendar year, according to Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.

Bartlett said the country is expected to welcome five million visitors in 2024, one year ahead of the initial target timeline.

He was addressing day two of the Jamaica Customer Service Association’s (JCSA) National Customer Service Week (NCSW) and Service Excellence virtual conference on Wednesday.

The tourism minister said the earning projection is based on statistics which show that the island is set to surpass the US$4-billion mark by year-end, which he described as “a huge achievement … for the industry”.

“We are now seeing [over] the last three or four months of reporting, starting in June, where we are exceeding arrivals for 2019. Initially, we had set ourselves the target of having five million visitors [and] earning US$5 billion over five years. We had set that in 2020 to make it a programme for 2025, [and] we are well down the wicket in that regard,” Bartlett outlined.

He said the tourist industry has rebounded impressively from the two-year slump caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to experience growth. The Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) April to June 2022 Quarterly Report indicates that tourism’s growth continues to drive the country’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery.

The economy grew by 5.7 per cent during the period, relative to the corresponding period in 2021, with the tourism and hospitality sector contributing substantially. Data from the PIOJ indicate that the ‘Hotels and Restaurants’ subsector grew by an estimated 55.4 per cent.

The data also show that the average length of stay by stopover visitors has returned to 2019 levels at 7.9 nights, which, according to Bartlett, will soon extend to 10 days/nights. He also disclosed that the average spend per tourist has increased from US$168 to US$182 per night. He expressed confidence that this figure will move to US$200 per night shortly.

Notwithstanding the pandemic fallout, he said Jamaica has welcomed 5.1 million visitors and earned US $5.7 billion since the industry’s reopening in June 2020, after closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

JIS