Ja­maica earned US$4.3 bil­lion from the tourism in­dus­try last year, with an es­ti­mat­ed 4.3 mil­lion tourist vis­it­ing the coun­try, the is­land’s Min­is­ter of Tourism Ed­mund Bartlett has said.

Speak­ing on the JIS Tele­vi­sion Pro­gramme ‘Get the Facts’, Bartlett said the sec­tor fin­ished the year strong, de­spite the slight short­fall in ar­rival fig­ures due to avi­a­tion dis­rup­tions, Hur­ri­cane Beryl and geopo­lit­i­cal is­sues such as trav­el ad­vi­sories.

“We had 68,000 less seats in­to Ja­maica, which meant there was a nat­ur­al re­duc­tion in the pro­ject­ed fig­ures in terms of ar­rivals. Tourism, as you know, is re­silient. Notwith­stand­ing those dis­rup­tions, we are com­ing out of the year with a small in­crease in ar­rivals but the earn­ings are in line with what we pro­ject­ed,” Bartlett said.

He told view­ers that Ja­maica is on track to re­alise its 5x5x5 growth strat­e­gy of five mil­lion vis­i­tors and earn­ings of US$5 bil­lion by 2025.

Bartlett not­ed that 1.6 mil­lion air­line seats have been se­cured, so far, for the win­ter sea­son, which, he said, “is the largest amount ever.

“As­sum­ing an 80 per cent load fac­tor, that is to say the plane is com­ing 80 per cent full, we would bring 1.3 mil­lion vis­i­tors in that space, and that’s a 12.9 per cent in­crease over last year. So, the win­ter is strong, and win­ter is the strongest pe­ri­od for earn­ings in tourism, and so we an­tic­i­pate a very strong first quar­ter of 2025.

“That would set the pace for the rest of 2025, pro­vid­ing, of course, there aren’t any oth­er weath­er dis­trac­tions and dis­rup­tions as we call it. But the key in all of this is that you build ca­pac­i­ty to re­spond ef­fec­tive­ly to dis­rup­tions, and that’s re­silience and that’s what has be­come a guid­ing prin­ci­ple for tourism man­age­ment in Ja­maica – re­silience,” Bartlett added.

In Oc­to­ber last year, Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness said that a new in­ter­na­tion­al air­port will be es­tab­lished in the tourist re­sort town of Ne­gril in the west­ern end of the is­land.

Al­so last Oc­to­ber, the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Ja­maica (AAJ) said it had iden­ti­fied a site for the es­tab­lish­ment of the coun­try’s fourth in­ter­na­tion­al air­port in Ne­gril. CEO of the AAJ, Au­d­ley Dei­drick, ex­plained that the di­rec­tive giv­en to the AAJ by the Gov­ern­ment was to de­ter­mine the ex­tent to which the Ne­gril Aero­drome could be up­grad­ed to an in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, and con­sul­tants were hired to de­vel­op a mas­ter plan to trans­form the fa­cil­i­ty.

“We en­gaged con­sul­tants to do the nec­es­sary stud­ies and out of those stud­ies it has emerged that the present aero­drome is not suit­able for de­vel­op­ment of a ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, tak­ing flights us­ing air­craft the size of a Boe­ing 737, which is now the most com­mon air­craft utilised by air­lines for trans­port,” Dei­drick said.

He said that hav­ing done the re­search in the Ne­gril area, the con­sul­tants have lo­cat­ed an al­ter­na­tive site, which is with­in 15 to 20 min­utes of the tourism belt and the Ne­gril sev­en-mile beach.

Dei­drick said plans are now be­ing craft­ed for the de­vel­op­ment of this in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, which is ex­pect­ed to ease some of the pres­sure off the Sang­ster In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Mon­tego Bay.

“This is to al­le­vi­ate the chal­lenges that tourists fly­ing in­to Mon­tego Bay face get­ting in­to Ne­gril, a long jour­ney which, at times, can be­come longer de­pend­ing on traf­fic and road con­di­tions,” he not­ed.

The Pres­i­dent and CEO con­tend­ed that the es­tab­lish­ment of the fa­cil­i­ty will au­gur well for the growth of west­ern Ja­maica.

“In ad­di­tion to cater­ing to tourism traf­fic for the Ne­gril fa­cil­i­ties and prop­er­ties, we posit that an air­port in that part of Ja­maica will al­so open up the west­ern part of Ja­maica to var­i­ous forms of fur­ther eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment,” he not­ed.

Dei­drick said it could al­so be an al­ter­na­tive for per­sons in the west­ern parish­es of St. Eliz­a­beth, West­more­land, Hanover and even parts of St. James.

Speak­ing to trav­el ad­vi­sors at the San­dals Ja­maica Love sales event last Oc­to­ber, Hol­ness al­so an­nounced plans for a new pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal at the Sang­ster In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in the west­ern city of Mon­tego Bay.

At the event, the Ja­maican prime min­is­ter al­so out­lined the on­go­ing US$320-mil­lion South coast high­way that will link Har­bour View in East Kingston to Port An­to­nio, in the east­ern parish of Port­land; the US$225-mil­lion perime­ter road be­ing built out of Mon­tego Bay; the Lucea by­pass road in the west­ern parish of Hanover that would “cost a mas­sive in­vest­ment” and “spend­ing, in five years, more mon­ey than had been spent in the pre­vi­ous 30 years” to make the coun­try more se­cure. (CMC)