In wake of recent success, the Jamaican tourist board is set to spend money on promoting its country to international tourists.
Once a recession dies down, traditionally, tourism tends to emerge as one of the first, if not the first, sector to show signs of recovery. This is partially due to a general recovery from a recession being dependent on tourism, thus making it far less of a coincidence.
The new Jamaican president, Andrew Holness, is fully aware of the importance of tourism in Jamaica and plans to pump pounds into the industry to make his country the most prominent in the Caribbean. The plan is to ultimately create over 20,000 jobs in tourism whilst improving Jamaica’s reputation on an international scale.
Even without great marketing efforts, it seems that the popularity of Jamaica has been growing in recent years. The island welcomed 736,000 visitors from cruise ships and 1.5 million stopover visits between January and September this year and has been the leader on the Caribbean market for the last 6 years.
The Caribbean offers some stiff competition yet the bookings to Jamaica continue to rise, with the 2011 winter season looking very promising.
More good news is on the horizon with JetBlue about to extend its routes by opening a route between Fort Lauderdale and Kingston. This is almost certain to guarantee a new influx of visits from Florida, whilst relieving the reliance upon visitors stepping off cruise ships.
It also puts the onus on the Jamaicans to improve infrastructure and their own facilities for visitors when the aircraft from Florida start landing.