JAMAICA’S tourism authorities say that they have US$2.6 million to spend on an aggressive Fall advertising and promotional campaign in the United States starting later this month and that they outlined this programme to the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association’s (JHTA’s) Marketing Council two Wednesdays ago.

“We would have normally started at the beginning of September,” Tourism Minister Portia Simpson Miller told the Observer last week. “However, the decision was taken to wait until after the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, so the campaign will begin on September 23.”

The allocation for the Fall campaign is part of the approximately US$17 million which the government approved in this year’s budget for overseas marketing by the JTB, officials say.

According to Simpson Miller, US$2 million will be spent on television advertising, while US$625,000 will pay for a print campaign.

“A part of the print campaign involves a joint promotion, called Exquisite Escape, with American Express, Air Jamaica and local hoteliers in which our ads will be placed in upscale and influential publications such as Travel & Leisure, Departures, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure Golf, Conde Nast Traveler, Brides and New York Magazine,” Simpson Miller said.

She also told the Observer that ads will be placed on cable television, including CNN, Lifetime, Fox, Home & Garden, VH1, Food, TBS, TNT, BET, USA, as well as on ABC’s regional North-east Network, covering 27 markets in the US north-east. “That feed reaches about 23 per cent of the US population,” Simpson Miller said.

The tourism minister’s disclosure of the advertising campaign comes amidst heavy flak from the sector against the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) which has been described as lethargic and ineffective.

Recent allegations of financial and professional conduct against three senior staffers at the JTB’s New York office have only served to exacerbate the organisation’s recent image as a bloated, out-of-control agency.

Three weeks ago, Simpson Miller sent the JTB’s chief internal auditor, Colin Greenland, to New York to probe the allegations. His report, she said last week, is being finalised and will be discussed by the JTB’s board of directors before being publicised.

The JTB, in the meanwhile, said it is continuing its overseas promotions and product launches and its sales representatives are busy calling on travel agents and tour operators.

“We’re not rolling over and playing dead,” said tourism director Fay Pickersgill last week. “We realise we are in a crisis, so we have to work at turning the business around.”

Pickersgill said that in addition to the US campaign, the JTB was preparing its television campaign for the United Kingdom which, she expected, would start in January 2003. “I have US$1.2 million for that,’ she told the Observer.

She also said that Jamaica would be placing ads in publications designed for the groups and conventions market, one of the most lucrative in the travel industry with an estimated spend of US$122 billion.

In addition, Pickersgill said that at least 120 travel agents will be flown into the island in October on familiarisation trips and will be taken to the major resort centres of Montetgo Bay, Negril and Ocho Rios.