By the Caribbean Journal staff
Jamaica just had its best summer ever for tourism arrivals, according to new data from the country’s Ministry of Tourism.
Stopover tourist arrivals rose by 6 percent from May to August compared to the same period in 2017, according to Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.
That represented a total of 884,324 tourist arrivals in the period.
Jamaica Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.
“It has definitely has been our best summer ever,” Bartlett said in a statement.
“The preliminary data also shows that [tourism] earnings up to the end of August are over $2 billion USD. Expenditure from tourists for the first eight months is $2.2 billion. We are trending well ahead of the $3 billion mark for the end of the calendar year,” Bartlett said.
Overall, when looking at cruise and stayover visitors, the country saw 1.312 million visitors in the period.
“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,” said the Minister.