Jamaica has witnessed a record-breaking season of stopover arrivals between May and August this year, said tourism minister Edmund Bartlett.
Provisional estimates indicate that the island destination saw a 6% growth when compared to the same period last year. The UK market has also performed well during the months of June and July with visitor numbers up by 3% and positive projections for the rest of the summer months.
During a press briefing in Ministry of Tourism's New Kingston office, Bartlett said: ?It has definitely has been our best summer ever. We had 884,324 visitors compared to the 834,292 from the period May to August in 2017. These figures contributed to total visitor arrivals (May to August) of 1,312,494, which was a 4.4% increase over the same period last year.?
Estimates indicate that between January and August of this year, the country welcomed 2,955,007 visitors, an increase of 4.7% over the same period last year. This figure comprised 1,714,060 stopover arrivals and 1,240,947 cruise visitors.
Bartlett added: ?The projections that we made for growth last year was for 5% per annum for five years. Last year we broke all of that because we got 12% ? that is a phenomenal achievement. We are excited about that prospect and we are seeing that we are going to get to that mark.
?We do not want to take this success for granted and we are aggressively targeting new and traditional markets to attain double-digit growth and promote Jamaica as the ideal winter tourism destination.?
