Jamaica has reached the 1 million tourist visitor milestone for this year.
The milestone came a month earlier than last year when the country was one of the earliest destinations to show meaningful recovery from the pandemic crisis.
Jamaica is now targeting the arrival of nearly 4 million inbound international visitors this year.
Speaking at the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association Caribbean Travel Marketplace in Barbados, Jamaican Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said: “From January through December 2022 Jamaica welcomed 2,478,386 stopover arrivals, a 69.2% increase over 2021 and nearly a full recovery to 2019 highs,” said Minister Bartlett. “As of May 10, we received over a million visitor arrivals to date this year, putting our destination on par with 2019 records. We have seen steady growth in our arrivals and continued investment in the tourism sector, which is a tremendous achievement. Projecting ahead for 2023 through 2025, we expect to attract more than 3.8 million visitors in 2023 and grow to more than 5 million visitors in 2025.”
Mr Bartlett said: “To keep this growth on an upward trajectory, we continue to build out new air service with new flights this year from Chicago Midway, Denver, St. Louis, Dallas, Kansas City, and London Gatwick. Plus, we are expanding and modernising Sangster International Airport and have approximately 8,000 new hotel rooms slated for construction over the next two to five years.”
