MONTEGO BAY, St James — Director of Tourism Donovan White is upbeat about the number of new flights on the horizon for the upcoming winter season, revelling air service growth to the destination which he said is projected to welcome nearly three million stopover visitors by the end of the year.

Speaking at the Jamaica Product Exchange (Japex) at Montego Bay Convention Centre on Monday, White told delegates that over the last three years the Ministry of Tourism has been engaging and re-engaging airline partners around the world, particularly in North America. Their work has paid off, with new routes that include Southwest Airlines flights out of Kansas City.

“In November, United [Airlines], which is one of the largest carriers out of the United States, will open up service out of Denver, Colorado. It’s an area that is very strategic for us in covering the west coast of the United States,” the tourism director said.

He also noted that Canada Jetlines will commence service from Toronto to Montego Bay next month, while a new carrier from Canada is expected to begin service from Toronto to Kingston.

White also told the delegates in attendance that Nores, which is a new airline out of the UK, will begin service out of London Gatwick.

“So now we have three carriers out of London Gatwick: TUI, British Airways, and Nores flying into Montego Bay — which is great news for us,” he stated.

White is also ecstatic over the performance of the sector, which at the end of August was slightly below arrival figures in 2019.

“It’s been a fantastic year. If you look at what we were able to do in 2019, which was our largest year on record, we did 2.9 million visitors up to the end of August of 2019, earning US$2.5 billion in earnings. In 2023 we have done 2.77 million visitors so we are just 5.5 per cent short of 2019 numbers — but we are 32 per cent up on last year to the end of August,” he stated.

But he was quick to underscore that this year’s earnings have outpaced those of 2019.

“Destination earnings grew by some US$400 million between 2019 and 2023 to US$2.9 billion in earnings so we are indeed extremely ecstatic about the fact that we are growing in the right places and we are growing steadily on visitor numbers,” White said.

“So where we reach to the end of August, we are looking forward to the end of December. Our forecast is saying 3.99 million visitors but, importantly, stopover visitors will grow this year over 2019 by five per cent to 2.814 million, compared to 2.68 million in 2019,” he added.

For his part, an upbeat president of Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association Robin Russell noted that it is the “first year we are having more buyers than sellers so there is significant uptake in Japex this year”.

“We have over 132 buyer delegates and 102 supplier delegates. We are having persons from over 20 countries,” Russell stated.

He also expressed his appreciation for the availability of airlifts.

“We are creating relationships and our airlift is very strong; we have airlifts from so many ports now. You are able to fly out of India, travel through New York or you travel Atlanta — so even if you don’t have direct flights we are able to do that. Speaking to a lady today, she was able to connect out of Poland through Frankfurt — so one flight from Poland to Frankfurt and then direct into Montego Bay. So these are things that are exciting because it means that persons can get here in a one flight or two flights, and that makes it easier for the traveller and therefore we are going to have more persons who are willing to do that,” he added.

Japex has returned to full face-to-face interaction for the first time since 2019. The trade fair was held in a virtual format in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021 it was set to be held in November as a hybrid (in-person/virtual) event but joint hosts, the JHTA and Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), rescheduled it to early 2022.