Scores of tourists had to be shuttled into Kingston for overnight accommodations on Valentine’s Day weekend after all major hotels in Jamaica’s resort cities reported a fully booked house, according to tourism officials..

In fact, one major hotel was said to have been overbooked by over 300 guests.

President of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) Wayne Cummings said since the start of the winter tourist season hotels have been doing very well, but Valentine’s Day weekend was by far one of the busiest.

Cummings explained that guests had to be booked to stay in hotels as far away as Kingston, with some hotels having been oversold while others reported full occupancy.

“These are bookings we would have hoped for last year,” Cummings told Sunday Finance last week.

According to the JHTA president, last week’s good fortune could have stemmed from a desire by people to travel, as well as the severe weather conditions being experienced in parts of the United States and Canada.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said Jamaica welcomed over 25,000 stop over visitors over that weekend alone.

“Hotels were so full that some 600 guests were transferred to Kingston between Saturday and Sunday night because there was no room anywhere on the South , North West or East Coast,” he said.

He explained that there are indications that there will be solid bookings until the end of the winter tourist season in April.

According to Bartlett, the high volume of visitors comes in the wake of the recent historic inaugural flights of AirTran which had three flights arriving in Jamaica on the same day out of different gateways. The Airline has begun offering services from Orlando, Atlanta and Baltimore.

“This is the first time we have had three flights from one airline coming in on one day,” Bartlett said.

The tourism minister explained that AirTran is expected to make some 18 flights into the island per week bringing some 2,500 visitors each week.

“It is my view that AirTran, and other carriers which have added Jamaica to their destinations this year, are coming here because this is a very attractive destination, not only because of what the island offers, but also because this destination is hot,” Bartlett said.

He argued that the drive to get a million airline seats into the island for this winter tourist season which runs from December 15 to April, contributed significantly to the sold out rooms.

“This is beginning to reflect in this record breaking weekend of full occupancy, because I have never known of hotels having to send visitors to Kingston, especially at a time when we have so many rooms,” he said. There is an estimated 20,000 rooms at Jamaica’s larger hotels.

Meanwhile, Bartlett noted that unlike American airlines and US Airways, there was no shared risk deal reached to get AirTran to fly into the island from these major gateways..

“It was not one of the incentivised flights and so it didn’t cost us any money although we worked with them with marketing,” he said.

He explained that there was an incentive deal reached with US Airways out of Phoenix into Montego Bay because that airline was flying out of a brand new gateway.

According to Bartlett, the booming winter tourist season, in which Jamaica has already welcomed over 150,000 visitors can be attributed to the Jamaica Tourist Board’s increased marketing thrust.

But despite the full house, the JHTA president said many of the guests were staying at the reduced rates which have been in the market for sometime to entice more travellers to the region.

“A lot of the rooms were booked already for several months at rates which have been out there in the market for sometime,” he said.