Thomson Cruise Lines homeports at the Port of Montego Bay

The Thomson Dream, a cruise ship belonging to Thomson Cruise Lines, will homeport at the port of Montego Bay for the 2014-2015 winter season. The Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ) confirmed this in a statement Friday in which the authority reported that it had been engaged in discussions with the cruise company for the past four years with the aim of positioning Jamaica as a future Caribbean homeport for the line.

Homeporting offers a number of benefits to a destination such as attracting visitors for both cruise and land-based vacations, providing added airlift through charter flights, utilising unused berths during non-peak port days, and utilising non-traditional services engaged by port-of-call vessels such as provisioning, luggage handling, and bunkering, among other services.

The PAJ's efforts have been supported by the Jamaica Tourist Board's (JTB) London office. The winter 2014 bookings were finalised after a series of familiarisation trips hosted jointly by the PAJ and the JTB , and a May 2013 meeting with Thomson Cruises in London.

Thomson Cruise Lines is a premier company in the United Kingdom and international markets, and as such, its decision to call at Jamaica and homeport at the port of Montego Bay is a great endorsement for the country. The Thomson Dream will be doing 17 turnaround operations at the port of Montego Bay. One of the unique and beneficial features of this operation is that the PAJ was able to persuade Thomson to also call on another Jamaican port during the season.There will be three calls to the Historic Falmouth Port in addition to the 17 homeports.

Fraser Ellacott, customer operations director for Thomson Cruises, stated, "we are extremely excited about our itinerary portfolio for winter 2014-15 and have really listened to what our customers want. We are also continuing to invest in modernising and enhancing the experience on-board, with the addition of private balconies on the Thomson Celebration as just one example.

He added further: "Being the only UK cruise line to offer itineraries directly from Montego Bay as a homeport, we know that the variety of the programme needs to be outstanding. I am confident that with the introduction of destinations like Belize, Panama, Cuba, Colombia, and Costa Rica, we will have an extremely successful season, and I can't wait to see Thomson Dream based in this lively and vibrant port!"

According to William Tatham, vice-president, cruise shipping and marina operations at the PAJ, "Increased homeporting is part of the PAJ's cruise-marketingstrategy, and a number of European lines have been successfully targeted to this end. In the 2013-14 season, the port of Montego Bay will be the homeport for the Louis Crystal (Cuba Cruise) and the Aidabella (Aida Cruises)."