Tourism looking up
Published:Thursday | April 21, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Bartlett says preliminary figures show record growth for the last four months
Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
JAMAICA'S TOURIST industry has earned some US$852.6 million, over the last four months, according to Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.
The figures, although preliminary, set another record for the island which experienced an unprecedented growth in both stopover and cruise-ship arrivals this past winter season, which ended last Friday.
Reports from Bartlett are that the country amassed a 5.6 per cent increase in stopover visitors between December 15 and April 15, while cruise shipping, which was ailing, capped a 9.6 per cent increase.
"Between December 15 and April 15 some 743,766 stopover visitors arrived here, up from 704,320 for the same period in 2010, while cruise shipping went up from 363,818 in 2010 to 398,772 visitors in 2011."
country's growth projection
Bartlett, who was addressing delegates at the opening of the two-day Tourism Outlook Seminar at Half Moon Conference Centre in Montego Bay, said the yield was in keeping with the country's growth projection of four to five per cent.
Like Jamaica, the rest of the Caribbean expects to grow around five per cent in 2011, with spending by no more than three per cent - bargains and discounts dictating, say statistics gleaned from the Caribbean Tourism Organisation.
Minister Bartlett, however, cautioned the industry stakeholders against likening tourism's contribution to a second cousin.
"We need to engage new business models to create a tourism industry that is more community friendly; more responsive to the economic and social needs of the areas around them," said the minister.
"Tourism is an experiential, intangible commodity, though it involves and touches on many tangible inputs. The very broad nature and scope of this sector makes it challenging to track its contribution to our national economies, accounting for the traditionally low-level position it is given on the national agenda," he urged.
And while he stressed the importance of the industry, he argued that the economies of the Caribbean as small-island developing states stood to reap tremendous gains from the mainstreaming, careful planning and streamlining of the tourism industry at the national and global policy levels.
The Tourism Outlook Seminar, which is being staged under the theme 'Retooling for the New Decade ... 2011 and Beyond', has once again attracted a number of tourism's key policymakers and stakeholders from across the Caribbean, as well as a highly-respected cadre of presenters drawn from well-recognised organisations worldwide, such as the Inter-American Investment Corporation, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, GraceKennedy Limited, Pan Caribbean Financial Services, PhoCusWright, and Exim Bank Jamaica.