JAMAICA – Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett is confident that after blazing a path of success, despite numerous challenges in 2024, the sector is poised to do even better this year. According to Bartlett, the current winter season — which started on December 15 and runs until April 15 — is shaping up to be strong and is expected to see a minimum of 1.3 million visitors and earnings of some USD 1.5 billion which will set the tone for a bumper 2025. “The performance in December represented a recovery from the fallout that we had as a result of Hurricane Beryl, the reduction in airlift into the country, the [US] travel advisories, and adverse weather conditions that prevailed in the months of October and November. “The recovery is going to be even stronger January through to March and will enable a very strong fourth quarter for the economy overall,” Bartlett told the Jamaica Observer on Friday as he pointed to recent reports from the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica that showed the economy contracted sharply in the July-September quarter of 2024.

“The expectation is full recovery [of the tourism sector] for the winter, with growth of 13 per cent, which will see a resumption of the growth path for the economy overall,” added Bartlett. He underscored that the performance of the cruise sector was stronger than expected last year, with just over 1.25-million visitors coming to the nation’s ports. This is projected to increase to more than 1.4-million visitors in 2025.

The tourism minister said with the growth in the sector to continue well into this year, efforts to build the human capacity in the industry will be increased.

“Our training programmes are going to be escalated during the period, and we have already trained and certified more than 20,000 workers in the industry since the establishment of the Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation in 2017, and that has augured well for quality of our labour force. We have also enabled a level of portability of Jamaica workers all across the United States and the rest of the Caribbean. That augurs well for us also in terms of remittances that come in,” said Bartlett. (Jamaicaobserver)