Tourism official says WTM ranking of MoBay as number one trending city is ‘no surprise’
ST JAMES, Jamaica – The recent World Travel Market’s (WTM) ranking of Montego Bay as the top summer travel recovery city of 2022 is a no-brainer for senior advisor and strategist in the Ministry of Tourism, Delano Seiveright.
The summer travel outlook 2022 report revealed that at the city level, summer travel recovery is being led by Montego Bay, Jamaica, with a positive growth of 23 per cent.
The report also shared that Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and Cancun, Mexico, placed second and third, with 19 per cent and 14 per cent increase, respectively.
Twenty cities were listed in the report, with Cairo, Egypt, and Dehli in India, rounding out the top five cities.
Seiveright cited a plethora of factors behind Montego Bay’s favourable ranking.
“It doesn’t come as a surprise to us that Jamaica has topped the list, Montego Bay ranking number one in terms of global recovery for our tourism numbers. We see this on the ground. Our hotels are full, our villas are full and we have had a number of events in recent weeks that has also contributed to the increased numbers of visitors to the island and we are very happy about that,” the tourism official told OBSERVER ONLINE.
“And beyond that, the team at the Ministry of Tourism, the team at the Jamaica Tourist Board, and our private sector partners have really worked very hard in recent months and certainly over the last two years to keep Jamaica top of mind amongst the visitors — potential and otherwise. “We have also developed a very strong track record for being a safe and secure destination, certainly as it relates to COVID and overall health management and that has also been very helpful. So we are pretty much back at our 2019 numbers, which is excellent as it relates to stopover arrivals.”
He noted that “we are still working on getting the cruise numbers up but for the most part we have had a pretty solid recovery this summer and it is shown in the report published by the World Travel Market and we are very happy about that.”
Last week Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, noted that Jamaica’s tourism sector has almost fully recovered from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had threatened the very survival of the industry.
“The good news is that Jamaica has now recovered 90 percent from the COVID-19 pandemic in the tourism sector,” the tourism minister said.
“Our recovery in terms of arrivals this year is likely to be well over three million, and we are also expecting our earnings will be just about $100 million, or so, below our best earnings in 2019 of $3.7 billion,” he added.