Minister of Tourism Ed Bartlett has listed Russia as one of the markets that will again cause an uptick in arrivals to the island, as the Russian economy returned to modest growth since the start of 2017.

In fact, the first flight from Russia to Jamaica is expected to resume in October 2018.

“We said that we were going to bring back some markets that we had lost, and we can tick off Russia because it is back on track. We have meetings next month to tidy up that arrangement,” said Bartlett, who was yesterday speaking at a post-UNWTO, Government of Jamaica and World Bank Group conference on jobs and inclusive growth at the Montego Bay Convention Centre.

Tourism arrivals from Russia saw the largest dip in 2014, when stopover arrivals moved from 12,087 in 2013 to 4,064 in 2014. The declining trend continued throughout 2015 and 2106 with arrivals totalling 971 and 940, respectively.

Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association President Nicola Madden-Greig had expressed concerns, as Jamaica had started to see a decline in the market. The reason for the decline was, however, beyond the control of the Government of Jamaica, as the Russian rouble lost more than 60 per cent of its value due to rapidly falling oil prices and the impact of Western-imposed sanctions over Russia’s alleged involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

Transaero Airlines had also stopped chartering flights to the island, which dramatically reduced available seats from Russia.

Data from the World Bank yesterday reported that the Russian economy has returned to modest growth – amidst positive global growth, a recovery in trade, rising oil prices, and growing macroeconomic stability.

The bank said that the growth has allowed consumer demand and consumption to rise as the business environment improved, underpinning projections that Russia’s economy will grow by 1.7 per cent in both 2017 and 2018, and 1.8 per cent in 2019.

Bartlett noted that the upcoming winter tourist season promises to be the biggest Jamaica has seen.

It follows on double-digit performance since April and even higher tourist arrival performance from August to the start of the month. The growth comes amid the closure of Jamaica’s airspace in the first week of September from a hurricane scare.

“So we are seeing that the growth is continuing and it’s going to go further because we have built good partnerships. Partnership with Munich so far is growing at a rapid rate and has gone beyond our expectations. We are now the largest market for the Caribbean in the UK and the growth out of the US is strong because airlift is strong,” the tourism minister said.

He added that the ministry is now targeting arrival numbers from South America and already has partnership discussions underway.

“So eastern Europe has come up with new energy and because we have two flights, it has changed the pace of airlift arrangements. We know there are challenges but with Eurowing operating out of two cities out of Germany, including Munich, which will start next year, it will give us the connections from Poland, Kroatia, Czechoslovakia, Georgia, among others. So we are in a good place,” Bartlett said.

Tourist arrivals from the Czech Republic to Jamaica saw a dip of just over 61 per cent year over year, moving from 1,325 in 2015 to 505 at the end of 2016.