Bartlett has warm predictions for winter tourist season
Published:Friday | December 3, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The Ministry of Tourism is projecting growth for the upcoming winter tourism season, which is two weeks away, but not at the same robust pace as the previous year's.
"We are expecting four to five per cent growth for the winter season over last year," Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said Tuesday.
"Last year was very strong, as you know, we grew by 9.3 per cent," he said at a press conference at his New Kingston offices.
Jamaica's winter promotion campaign has already begun in markets in Canada, where, for the first time, said Bartlett, the country was running advertisements on television in French and English. Billboards are also up in Europe, and promotions under way via social media.
Tourism officials are also anticipating positive reception from its new 3D ad, as the first country to debut such high-tech promotions.
As for airlift, Bartlett said one million seats have been secured worldwide, with North America representing the lion's share of 800,000.
"The areas of the strongest market pull are the areas that we have the strongest connectivity. Significantly, ... we have ... a 22 per cent increase in airlift out of Canada," the tourism minister said.
Bartlett's optimism for winter follows a relatively strong third quarter ending September.
"In fact, a 7.7 per cent growth over last year for both stopover and cruise is the best performance for any quarter we have had in the last five years," he said.
Bartlett attributed the perfor-mance to a 19.3 per cent increase in cruise arrivals and 3.7 per cent in stopover visitors.
Bartlett also reported an uptick in earnings from tourism of 2.2 per cent to US$1.418 billion year to date September.
The minister said the per-formance was outstanding, considering the domestic shock from the Christopher 'Dudus' Coke extradition arrest and resulting civil unrest that claimed more than 70 lives.
"The images that were coming out of this destination were one which made people wonder, 'Oh, my God, that destination has now gone to the rocks', but we were able to come out of that period with a strength that has enabled us to have the best July ever seen in terms of arrivals, where we welcomed 204,000 stopover visitors," Bartlett said.
Looking ahead, Bartlett said Jamaica would focus on emerging markets such as China, India, Brazil and Russia to gain market share.
"These are the new and exciting areas that are going to drive tourism growth in 2011. Notwithstanding that the traditional markets will continue to show growth, albeit at a smaller rate," he said.
"The fact is, therefore, that Jamaica's position, in relation to all of that, must take into account the new and emerging markets as a critical, strategical direction that we have to look for future growth."
Bartlett also announced an agreement with Copa Airlines to increase tourist traffic out of South America.