JAMAICA will today begin what is being described as a strong winter advertising campaign in North America and Europe that is expected to further increase visitor arrivals to the island over the next four months.

“The campaign will run through to March on major networks, cable television, radio and in both trade and consumer print media,” Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) chairman Dennis Morrison told the Observer Saturday.

According to Morrison, the first two weeks of the campaign will feature a ‘New Beginnings’ television ad in which veteran Jamaican actor, Charles Hyatt, extends to visitors, a new year welcome to the island.

While Morrison was unable to give specifics of the frequency of the 30- and 60-second ads, he suggested that it would be intense and said that prime time spots have been bought.

He declined to put a price tag on the spend, saying that Tourism Minister Aloun Assamba will disclose that in Parliament shortly in answer to a question from the Opposition.

However, a knowledgeable industry source told the Observer yesterday that based on the number of spots booked, the spend is significant and should appease the industry.

“This is probably the biggest advertising spend in Jamaica’s history,” the source, who asked not to be named, said. “We must also note that it is coming after a significant fall programme that cost US$3 million.”

For the past two years, the JTB has been on the receiving end of heavy flak from the sector over its marketing and advertising of the destination.

The agency’s critics had claimed that it spent more than 25 per cent of its US$32 million allocation on administration rather than on hard-core advertising and marketing.

Their claim, coupled with their calls for a fundamental reform of the agency, sparked a recurring row with the JTB which had consistently argued that it was always limited by budget constraints and that it was actually understaffed.

Since the winter of 1999, the JTB has been forced, each year, to seek additional funding from the government to mount advertising campaigns. The annual ritual has angered the local industry which has also directed its criticism at the administration, accusing it of indifference to the sector.

However, since the start of the fall programme, which ran until the US Thanksgiving holiday in November, tempers in the local industry appear to have cooled and the new winter advertising campaign seems to have buoyed their spirits.

Last week, for instance, north coast hotels reported good occupancy levels for the Christmas holidays, and arrivals at both the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay and Kingston’s Norman Manley International for December were up by six per cent over December 2001.

On Saturday, Morrison revealed that a vital element of the winter campaign will be the production of co-op ads with the travel industry’s major tour operators such as GoGo Tours, Thomson and Air Jamaica Vacations.

He said, too, that the European portion of the campaign would be concentrated in England and Holland, both of which have heavy airlift to Jamaica.