The Ministry of Tourism reports that around 1.54 million overnight visitors came to Jamaica in 2021, pushed mainly by US vacationers, who accounted for 1,278,679 overnight, land-based air arrivals (www.travelpulse.com). This figure is down from the 4,276,189 visitors in 2019, pre-pandemic.

However, even to return to the 2019 figures, we are still playing in the minor league.

Tourism today consists of several specific divisions — vacation, luxury, wellness, gaming /convention, all-inclusive, cultural, cruise, retirement, medical, and now-famous Airbnb. Our focus in Jamaica has, thus far, been limited to vacation and the all-inclusive market. But what will be the fastest-growing markets over the next ten years?

I have written in detail about Jamaica’s benefits if we developed our tourism market to target retirees, those seeking medical treatments, mineral/thermal spas, and casino gaming. This time I want to focus on wellness tourism.

Coming out of the pandemic, the Destination Marketing Unit at the Jamaica Tourist Board rolled out the ‘Global Recovery Campaign — Jamaica: Heartbeat of the World’, focusing on driving social media engagement and advertising through selected media channels in our primary source markets of visitors to support our competitive position. As such, targeted emphasis was on advancing and delivering “content specific to popular categories of travel bookings; including, romance, luxury, wellness, and family”. (Economic and Social Survey Jamaica, 2021)

The global wellness sector, which comprises industries that enable consumers to incorporate wellness activities and lifestyles into their daily living, is growing rapidly. With the addition of mental wellness, the wellness economy consists of 11 sectors.

The global wellness economy generated US$4.4 trillion in revenue during 2020 and is projected to grow at an intense pace of 10 per cent annually to nearly $7.0 trillion in 2025 (The Global Wellness Institute 2021).

The Asia-Pacific was the largest region for wellness spending in 2020 at US$1.5 trillion, followed by North America at US$1.3 trillion, and Europe at US$1.1 trillion. Yet North America leads other regions in the world in per capita spending at US$3,567 and Europe at US$1,236. Visitors and tourists travel to these areas to use various services. In fact, during 2020, 27 per cent of all wellness tourism expenditures were from international travel, with international visitors travelling to thermal/mineral springs and exclusive spas, which generated significant revenue.

International tourism accounts for roughly 30 per cent of global trade in services. One out of every 11 jobs worldwide is directly or indirectly linked to tourism (International Trade Centre). Wellness tourism is growing 50 per cent faster than traditional tourism as people seek places and spaces to replenish their mind, body, and soul with exercise and spa skincare treatments.

Post-pandemic consumers have become hyper-vigilant about maintaining balance in their lives while taking proactive measures to improve their health and reduce stress. Accordingly, “How they work, what they eat, and how they exercise, socialise and travel” are deliberated to determine the ultimate impact on their health outcomes, mental strength, physical stamina, and overall sense of personal resilience.

The new Equinox luxury, five-star hotel in Hudson Yards, Manhattan, is a strategic brand extension of the established Equinox Clubs, and caters to consumers who lead high-performance lives and crave a multidimensional, self-care, self-preservation experience to be the best version of themselves. Starting room rate: US$995 per night.

CEO Chris Norton says the Equinox’s goal was to “redefine luxury in a disruptive way by focussing on three pillars of feeling better; namely, movement, nutrition and regeneration”. He maintains that “luxury had changed long before COVID, and today modern luxury consumers are buying into brands for different reasons, prioritising alignment around their core values. In our case, well-being, sustainability, and a performance mindset are part of that mission. In addition, both an increased reliance on technology and COVID-19 have accelerated the departure from traditional luxury norms such as white glove service and forced hoteliers to re-examine their interpretation of luxury. For example, when some iconic luxury hotels removed the mini-bar due to COVID-19, we decided to keep the amenity and add items such as immunity-building kits”.

This hotel features a 60,000-square-foot gym, which offers daily classes in every form of fitness imaginable, including private personal training, boxing, yoga, and pilates. But fitness, to Equinox, is not only about working out; it is about rest, rejuvenation, eating well, and spa treatments designed to target a particular function.

“With a biophotonic, non-invasive scan of your carotenoid levels to assess the number of free radicals in the body. Treatment, then, looks like IV drips of nutrients, superfood-infused lattes, and vegetable-forward cuisine.” (Forbes 2022)

Equinox plans to launch 33 properties globally in the next 10 years.

Time to pivot

In this competitive global economy, just creating and implementing a marketing campaign will neither establish nor sustain innovation to separate ourselves from the crowd and intrigue the curiosity of current consumers of those of the future.

India is a top destination for cardiac bypass surgery at their Asian Heart Institute, which has a 99.83 per cent success rate. As a result, foreign tourist arrivals to India increased six times between 2009 and 2019, with international arrivals on medical visas growing from 112,389 to 697,453 (Mallapur 2021).

But India is not the only country building a medical tourism sector. Brazil, Panama, Costa Rica, Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore, Mexico, and Thailand are all taking advantage of the global medical tourism market which is projected to reach $273.72 billion by 2027.

The United States Census Bureau estimates that in the next five years, the US population over 60 will be approximately 54 million, of which 0.3 per cent (162,000) will elect to live abroad as there is an insufficient variety of living options available for them. Added to this reality are the cold winters, high costs of living, and high health-care costs, pushing this segment to seek other retirement options outside of the US.

With 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring in the US every day, almost 4 million people annually, already, Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica, which share Jamaica’s tropical climate conditions, are all developing a range of retirement housing products with the average cost being US$35,000 per annum. According to the US Department of State, more than 20,000 US expatriates live in Costa Rica, many of them as retirees.

In 2021 the market size of the global casinos and online gambling industry reached US$231 billion, employing approximately one million people at nearly 500,000 establishments worldwide (statista.com). The top five destinations for casino tourism are the United States (Vegas), Australia (Melbourne), The Bahamas (Nassau), Singapore, and Macau. In 2019, The Bahamas received approximately 7.25 million foreign visitor arrivals. Several countries compete successfully with our sun, sand, and sea offering in today’s global tourism market.

Where will Jamaica’s tourism product be in the next 10 years? Jamaica must act now and strategically pick the highest-demand niches for the future and go all-in. If not, we will continue only to dabble, receiving mediocre, low-paying stopover arrivals without truly optimising what’s possible for meaningful spending in our economy.

Lisa Hanna is Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, People’s National Party spokesperson on foreign affairs and foreign trade, and a former Cabinet member.