TOURISM Minister Edmund Bartlett, fresh from his visit to London for Jamaica Travel Market, announced yesterday that the island is to benefit from 19 weeks of air and cruise passengers for the 2019 winter tourist season.

This follows commitments from the British leisure travel group TUI Travel, and its Marella cruise line, which is forecast to inject more than US$10 million in revenues, deliver incrementally over 26,000 passengers, and produce 43,000 bed nights sold.

“The forecast for increased growth and revenue for Jamaica is exceptional. These additional passengers follow on the heels of securing a record 1.3 million aeroplane seats out of the Americas for the upcoming winter tourist season,” Bartlett said. “This is the result of strategically strengthening relations with airlift partners, major cruise lines and investors.”

Marella Cruises (formerly Thomson Cruises) is a British cruise line offering cruise holidays around Europe, the Caribbean, and Asia.

“Jamaica is buoyed by our continued growth which shows that between January and August of this year we welcomed 2,953,895 visitors, an increase of 4.6 per cent over the same period last year. Cruise visitors accounted for 1,239,835. Our gross foreign exchange earnings for the same period were US$2.2 billion, up 7.4 per cent over the same period in 2017,” Bartlett stated.

“I commend my team that has been aggressively engaging with our established markets such as Canada, USA, Europe and re-entering markets that we would like to see increased traffic from, such as Latin America and Japan,” he added.