One of the 10 largest travel companies in the world, Flight Centre USA, is anticipating increased tourist travel to Jamaica next year.

Dean Smith, president of Flight Centre USA, which recently acquired two large US travel companies, Liberty Travel and GoGo Travel said he expected 2011 to be one of the brightest years for Jamaica’s travel industry.

Smith was one of 150 movers and shakers in the global travel industry who were guests at Sandals Resorts in Ocho Rios last weekend. The travel agents were feted at the Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart owned resorts over a weekend that featured an experience of all aspects of the Sandals vacation.

Flight Centre USA manages approximately US$11 billion in travel spend per year. The company, which has over 13,000 employees in 11 countries worldwide, is among the biggest providers of room nights in the Caribbean.

Smith told the Business Observer that Sandals Resorts International is its biggest supplier and accounts for about 10 per cent of the company’s overall sales. The Australian-owned company is based in New York, where its sells wholesale travel packages to the tour companies and travel agents, who then sell to tourists.

Smith said that as a result of the improving economy within Jamaica there are better prospects for increased bookings. “2010 for us hasn’t been the best year. It’s better than 2009, but our forward bookings in 2011 are extremely strong and we are excited about what is going to happen next year,” he said.

“I think the economy is clearly improving a little bit, that is clearly helping people make those decisions. We are seeing a little bit of a shift from Mexico to the Caribbean the continued security issues in Mexico seem to be influencing people’s decisions,” Smith added.

Smith, who was visiting Jamaica for the first time, lauded the tourism product and said he now understood the appeal that Jamaica continued to have to travelers.

“I think Jamaica continues to have the appeal, the atmosphere the relaxed culture the friendliness, the beaches the warmth, the sand. Everything that Jamaica is famous for I have seen here,” Smith said.

Steve Gorga, president at Travel Impressions, another wholesale travel company with 37 years in the business, told other travel agents at a dinner held in their honour on Saturday that 2010 was the best year in its history for sending people to Jamaica because of the level of service offered here.

He said that as the travel industry slowed, his company had continued to invest in service, which drives their sales to destinations such as the Sandals resorts in Jamaica.

Smith’s Flight Centre USA acquired the US travel companies at a cost of US$135 million in 2009 during the recession that Smith said did not affect Australia. He said the acquisition gave the company a chance to offer more travel options across the world and in the Caribbean.

“We were fortunate that the Australian economy is very heavily driven by minerals and resources and our biggest customer in the world is China and China didn’t experience the recession as the rest of the world. While we did see a downturn we didn’t see officially a recession,” Smith said.

He added that entering the US market proved challenging and rewarding at once as reconciling company culture and operating procedures was not always easy.

“I don’t feel that we change our style; we certainly are more informal, looking towards simple solutions, common sense solutions rather than doing things the way they have always been done. Which when you buy a company after 57 years can be the biggest challenge but at the company was open for the opportunity and at the same time the company has been a joy to work with because everyone has been looking for the next opportunity,” Smith said.

This has informed his approach to selling vacations worldwide. With a product range that includes hotels in the US, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific, South East Asia, including Bali and Thailand, North Asia, Hong Kong, China, Japan the Middle East, Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, the company is able to sell more vacations to more places, including to Jamaica.

“The acquisition has brought supply to the global operation the product in the Caribbean and the product in Mexico, which we are now able to sell and distribute across our entire global network and in particular our businesses in Canada and in the UK,” Smith said.