Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA — Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett is targeting 250,000 visitors from Latin America (LATAM) over the next 5 years as part of his Ministry’s move to re-engage that market.

“The Latin America region has over 600 million people and represents one of the largest source markets for Jamaica that we must capitalise on. With travel fully returned and the potential of new airlift out of the region, we are building out strategies to attract these visitors,” Bartlett said in a release from the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) on Monday.

Minister Bartlett is in Latin America with a team of senior tourism representatives as part of a high-level strategic re-engagement of tourism partners in the region.

According to the release, Copa Airlines remains the strongest airline partner with an increased frequency of four flights weekly to Montego Bay and Kingston, with the aim of providing five flights weekly by first quarter 2024.

“Now is the time for Jamaica, a sought-after destination, to leverage this very lucrative market as part of our drive to welcome 5 million visitors by 2025. With 20 thousand new rooms coming on stream in Jamaica, we will need to engage our airline partners for more airlift tour operators to create more investment to support this drive,” the Minister shared.

The JTB revealed that in 2019, Jamaica welcomed over 38 thousand visitors from LATAM and was poised to increase this number in 2020, but then COVID hit. Still, coming out of the pandemic, in 2022, Jamaica was able to welcome over 22 thousand visitors from the region.

“The signs of interest for travel from LATAM to Jamaica are strong, and we are ready to showcase our authentic culture and unique offerings,” said Jamaica’s Director of Tourism, Donovan White.

“In fact, a marketing survey has shown a 30 million demand search for Jamaica from this region.”