AFTER registering a smashing 93 per cent recovery in visitor arrivals for the month of January 2023, Jamaica’s tourism sector seems set for a record-breaking year for its hospitality.

According to figures released yesterday by the Ministry of Tourism, the island received over 215,000 stopover arrivals in last month. That figure surpassed those of January, 2019 by 15 per cent as well as January 2022 by 93 per cent.

According to the ministry, these figures were driven primarily by the strong performance of Jamaica’s top source market, the United States, supported by the United Kingdom, where it remains the top-performing Caribbean island.

The country is also preparing for a record-breaking winter tourist season overall, which started on December 15 and ends in mid-April. In terms of flights for the period, Jamaica is projecting 1.3 million seats, of which over 900,000 will be from the US.

The ministry said that 2022 was a record year for the tourism industry, and despite troubling predictions, tourism rebounded in a big way from the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic 0f 2022, with arrivals and earnings for several months surpassing the 2019 record figures.

“We closed 2022 with some 3.3 million visitors and earnings of US$3.6 billion,” the ministry explained, noting that rapid recovery was supported by an aggressive airlift strategy out of gateways in Canada, the US, and Europe as well as out of regional and non-traditional markets.

The announcement, which was made during a luncheon meeting with the press hosted by Minister Edmund Bartlett at his New Kingston office yesterday, could not have come a better time, just days after the United Nations approved the country’s request for the UN to recognise February 17 as the annual date to recognise Global Tourism Resilience and the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC), of which he is co-chairman.

Bartlett launched Global Tourism Resilience Day during EXPO 2020 Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on February 17, 2022. In September 2022, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness also called for the official designation of that date annually at the 77th Session of the UN General Assembly.

The minister announced yesterday that the country will officially recognise Global Tourism Resilience Day, beginning this year, at the first-ever Global Tourism Resilience Conference, scheduled for February 15-17 at The University of the West Indies (UWI) Regional Headquarters in Mona, Kingston, Jamaica.

Bartlett told the press that tourism, in addition to being heavily involved in the recovery of the sector, is also very aware of the level of violence which has affected post-COVID-19 economic recovery and will be working with the security platform to ensure that it is brought under control.

“Tourism is a huge partner in the struggle to enable public order in Jamaica because our survival relies heavily on public order,” he told the briefing. He said that the discipline instituted on the roads, for example, is a big part of the Government’s security efforts.

“It is a big part of that safety security promise that we make to our visitors and our own people alike,” Bartlett said.