Paramount Pictures' "Bob Marley: One Love" movie, starring Kingsley Ben-Adir, is expected to help boost the tourism industry in Jamaica in 2024. This comes after an anticipated increase of 18% in tourism numbers in 2023, as revealed by Donovan White, the Director of Tourism at the Jamaica Tourist Board, in February.
The film's popularity is believed to attract more tourists to Jamaica, leading to overall growth in the country's tourism industry.
The country earned $4.3 billion and welcomed approximately 4.1 million visitors to the island, not including cruise ship passengers, in 2023.
Jamaica has been investing significantly in its tourism industry, adding thousands of hotel rooms and service flights from the U.S. In 2022 alone, Jamaica added 8,000 hotel rooms and invested $2 billion in the industry. This has created employment opportunities for around 24,000 hotel workers, including full- and part-time employees. Additionally, around 12,000 jobs were created for construction workers due to the expansion of the hospitality industry.
According to the latest updates, Jamaica will add around 15,000 hotel rooms in the next five to seven years. Of this total, over 2,000 rooms are expected to be added across four properties by 2024.
Although the United States State Department has issued a Level 3 travel warning for Jamaica due to the high rate of violent crimes such as armed robberies, burglaries, sexual assaults, and homicides, the island nation is seeing encouraging tourism and hotel industry numbers.
According to media reports, a Level 3 warning is the second-highest alert level. The State Department has issued a warning that sexual assaults are frequent, even at all-inclusive resorts, and local police often fail to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents. In addition, when arrests are made, cases are rarely prosecuted, and families of U.S. citizens killed in accidents or homicides often have to wait for a year or more for Jamaican authorities to issue final death certificates.