CHTA 2024: Jamaica, a rising tourist destination

If we talk about tourism performance, 2024 has marked a strong start with 1.7 million visitors in the first five months; 1,016,185 per stopover, and more than 700,000 cruise visitors. Which translates to $1.8 billion in revenue.

With a year-on-year increase of 4.6% in stopovers, and a 23% increase in cruise passengers, Jamaica achieved great results at the tourism level. While the forecast for 2024 is 4.58 million visitors; 3.23 million stopovers and 1.4 million for cruises.

Investment in the sector:
More than 2,000 new rooms are scheduled to open in the remainder of 2024. Among them are the first 1,000 rooms of the Princess Grand Jamaica hotel, which will have a capacity of 2,000 rooms, Riu Palace Aquarelle of 753, and Only Hotel of 450 in Montego Bahía.

Approximately between 15,000 and 20,000 rooms will be built over the next 5 to 10 years, with a value of 5 billion dollars.

Regional arrivals performance 2019 versus 2023:

The USA has increased its arrivals to Jamaica by 15.2%, while Canada increased by 39.9%, and LATAM by a significant 45.7%.

Regarding the scales, they increased by 16.7% in 2023 vs 2022, and 7.9% in 2023 vs 2019 (pre-pandemic year).

Air transport growth in 2023:

Last year there was a capacity increase of 15.4%, with 4,105,313 total seats, and with an average load factor of 83.5%. While from January to April 2024, 1,523,202 seats were occupied, with an average load factor of 85%, equaling the data recorded in 2019.

Finally, within the emerging markets for Jamaica is Latin America, with a strong increase of 40% in 2023 with 36,000 visitors received.

Source: VISIT JAMAICA.