April 1st 2024.
The highly anticipated Paramount Pictures film, "Bob Marley: One Love," featuring the talented Kingsley Ben-Adir as the lead, is expected to have a positive impact on tourism in Jamaica in the year 2024. This comes after a successful year in 2023, where the country saw a significant increase in tourist numbers.
According to Travel Weekly, Donovan White, the director of Tourism for the Jamaica Tourist Board, announced in February that they were expecting an 18% rise in tourism in 2023 compared to 2019. This resulted in a revenue of $4.3 billion and a total of 4.1 million visitors to the island, not including those arriving on cruise ships.
To support this growth, Jamaica is continuously adding new hotel rooms and service flights from the United States. White shared with Travel Agent Central, "With a 42 percent repeat visitor rate and a remarkable increase in arrivals, we are confident that 2024 will be another exceptional year for us. We are also expanding our airlift from key gateways and will be opening several new hotels throughout the year to accommodate our growing tourism sector."
In 2022, Jamaica added 8,000 hotel rooms, investing $2 billion and generating employment opportunities for 24,000 hotel workers, including both full-time and part-time employees. Additionally, the expansion of the hotel industry created 12,000 jobs for construction workers. White recently revealed that they are expecting to open 15,000 more hotel rooms in the next five to seven years, with over 2,000 of those being added in 2024 alone.
In an official statement in 2022, Jamaica's Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett expressed his delight with the progress in the local tourism industry. He stated, "We are thrilled with the developments in our tourism sector, which will undoubtedly have a positive impact on our economy and directly benefit thousands of Jamaicans. Tourism is a supply chain industry that supports various economic sectors such as construction, agriculture, manufacturing, banking, and transportation."
Despite the United States State Department issuing a Level 3 travel advisory for Jamaica, the country's tourism and hospitality numbers remain promising. As reported by NPR, a Level 3 advisory is the second-highest alert level, and the State Department warned about the prevalence of violent crimes, including sexual assaults, robberies, and homicides, in the country.
The advisory further mentioned, "Local authorities often do not respond adequately to serious criminal incidents, and the prosecution of cases is infrequent. Families of U.S. citizens who have been victims of accidents or crimes in Jamaica often have to wait for more than a year to receive a death certificate from the Jamaican authorities."
In response to this, the Jamaica Tourist Board released a statement to NPR, stating, "[T]he areas mentioned in the advisory are specific and do not represent the majority of the island's tourism offerings. The overall crime rate against visitors in Jamaica remains extremely low at 0.01%."
The board also assured visitors that Jamaica continues to be a top destination for international travel, with 4.1 million visitors in 2023, out of which 3 million were from the United States. They added, "Tourists can continue to have full confidence in visiting Jamaica and experiencing all that our beautiful country has to offer."
Bartlett also expressed his excitement for the growth of tourism in Jamaica, stating, "We are witnessing phenomenal growth in our tourism sector, and Jamaica has consistently been a top choice for travelers, both internationally and from our primary source market, the United States. We are on track to achieve yet another record-breaking quarter in terms of arrivals."
In conclusion, despite the travel advisory, Jamaica remains a popular and safe destination for tourists, with continuous efforts being made to enhance the tourism sector and contribute to the country's economy.
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