Jamaica adjusts tourism projections
Published:Wednesday | September 8, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Jamaica will not see the projected two million visitors targeted for this year, according to top tourism official Edmund Bartlett, who has linked the lowered estimates to Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
Coke is now being tried in the United States on gunrunning and other charges, but the violence that his planned extradition incited, is now having telling effects on Jamaica's tourism business, for which the island is more than 70 per cent dependent on the US market.
Tourism Minister Bartlett says new projections are for 1.93 million visitors, down 70,000 or 3.5 per cent, from the original two million estimate.
"This is because we had the fallout in the period of May and June during the west Kingston unrest, so we have to adjust it (the projections)," Bartlett told Wednesday Business.
He adds, however, that the fallout was not as bad as expected. They had originally projected that up to 100,000 fewer visitors would have given up vacations here, but that was before the effects of a US$10 million re-engagement campaign took hold.
The adjustment will also impact the projected earnings according to Bartlett, who said tourism income is now estimated at US$2 billion, down US$200 million or nine per cent from US$2.2 billion.
"We are pretty much on track," Bartlett said, in relation to the impact of the public relations campaign.
Up to the end of August, Jamaica recorded approximately 1.3 million visitors.
"We are back on a growth path, but we are not going to have the level of accelerated growth within the next three months," he told Wednesday Business, noting that these were seasonally slow months for tourist traffic.
Business generally picks up again at the start of the winter season in mid-December.
Bartlett was, however, quick to note, "The significant thing is that we will have growth." This, he said, was accomplished through the hard work from stakeholders in the industry.
Wooing travel writers
Starting this weekend up to November, some 1,000 travel agents and tour operators from Europe, United States and Canada would be invited to view the tourism product.
This wooing of travel writers is being done simultaneously with marketing blitzes, which head of the Jamaica Tourist Board John Lynch says have been planned for Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, according to a Government news agency release.
Lynch said the tourism television advertisements in the overseas markets would also resume in October.
More than 70 persons were killed during a three-day exchange with gunmen and the security forces in Tivoli Gardens, with scenes of the unrest plastered across television sets in news casts in Asia, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere.
In the wake of the unrest, hotels and other hospitality businesses began promoting discounts to prevent too severe a fallout in business for their properties.