Ja­maica is ex­pect­ed to reg­is­ter a record US$4.38 bil­lion for the fis­cal year 2023-24 from the tourism in­dus­try, Tourism Min­is­ter Ed­mund Bartlett has an­nounced.

Speak­ing durig the 2024/25 Sec­toral De­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Tues­day, Bartlett told leg­is­la­tors that stopover ar­rivals are pro­ject­ed at 2.96 mil­lion, re­flect­ing a 9.4 per cent in­crease over the pre­vi­ous pe­ri­od, with cruise ar­rivals ex­pect­ed to reach 1.34 mil­lion, up by nine per cent from the pre­vi­ous pe­ri­od in 2022/23.

Bartlett said that the US$4.38 bil­lion in earn­ings “is the largest rev­enue flow from tourism in the his­to­ry of the tourism in­dus­try.

“Sev­er­al of our com­mu­ni­ties that were reel­ing from COVID, as a re­sult of this per­for­mance, are now bustling cen­tres of com­merce and ac­tiv­i­ty again and are pro­vid­ing more jobs.”

Bartlett said that for the first three months of this year, an es­ti­mat­ed 1.34 mil­lion vis­i­tors have come to Ja­maica with earn­ings of US$1.27 bil­lion. He said the fig­ure in­cludes 788,000 stopovers, which is a 7.4 per cent in­crease over the first three months of 2023.

“Cruise has come back (with) 554,560 (cruise pas­sen­gers])rep­re­sent­ing a 16.1 per cent in­crease over the cor­re­spond­ing three months last year,” he said, telling leg­is­la­tors that the Cana­di­an mar­ket is grow­ing and has shown im­prove­ment.

“It grew, in fact, by 38.6 per cent and now ac­counts for 12.9 per cent of the mar­ket, which is very good for us be­cause it was just about 10 per cent be­fore COVID. What has hap­pened, how­ev­er, is that some of the oth­er mar­kets have shrunk and we will have to go back to build them and to get them stronger.”

Bartlett said that the Tourism En­hance­ment Fund col­lect­ed US$59.2 mil­lion in fees last year and that these funds had been gen­er­at­ed through the US$20 fee for in­com­ing air­line pas­sen­gers and the US$2 fee for cruise pas­sen­gers, di­rect­ly con­tribut­ing to the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund.

The coun­try al­so earned US$103.5 mil­lion in de­par­ture tax; $4.6 bil­lion in air­port im­prove­ment fees; air­line pas­sen­ger levy, $9.2 bil­lion; pas­sen­ger fees and charges, $11 bil­lion; and room tax, $3.6 bil­lion, for a to­tal di­rect rev­enue flows in­to the con­sol­i­dat­ed fund of US$345.8 mil­lion or $53.6 bil­lion.

“So, that $53.6 bil­lion is di­rect­ly in­to the gov­ern­ment rev­enues, but it does not in­clude the many bil­lions that flow from gen­er­al con­sump­tion tax (GCT), be­cause tourism is the most con­sump­tion-dri­ven ac­tiv­i­ty on plan­et Earth. Peo­ple trav­el to con­sume and con­sume, and at every point of con­sump­tion, they pay a tax,” Bartlett said.

Dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion, Bartlett al­so dis­closed that Ja­maica’s short-term va­ca­tion rental is boom­ing, say­ing “da­ta from Airbnb in­di­cates that guest check-ins for Jan­u­ary to De­cem­ber 2023 in­creased by 28 per cent over 2022, gen­er­at­ing an es­ti­mat­ed J$31.8 bil­lion (One Ja­maica dol­lar=US$0.008 cents) gross earn­ings from 1.3 mil­lion guest nights”.

He said the short-term va­ca­tion rental sub­sec­tor con­tin­ues to gain mar­ket share, with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 36 per cent of vis­i­tors opt­ing for this ac­com­mo­da­tion cat­e­go­ry.

“We an­tic­i­pate that de­vel­op­ments in the lo­cal con­struc­tion sec­tor will con­tribute ad­di­tion­al stock to this sub­sec­tor,” Bartlett said, adding that while the sec­tor seeks to add more rooms to ac­com­mo­date vis­i­tors, the in­dus­try work­ers have not been for­got­ten in these plans.

“The Min­istry of Tourism has wel­comed the pledge by four ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al ho­tel in­vestors, in­clud­ing RCD Ho­tels, Bahia Principe, Grand Pal­la­di­um and Princess Re­sorts, who have com­mit­ted to con­struct­ing over 2,000 res­i­den­tial units for in­dus­try em­ploy­ees com­bined. This in­cludes apart­ments and hous­es for the work­ers and their im­me­di­ate rel­a­tives.”

Bartlett said the an­nounce­ment came out of a meet­ing with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of In­vero­tel, an as­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing Span­ish hote­liers in Madrid, Spain.

“At the core of these ini­tia­tives lies a pro­found com­mit­ment to the well-be­ing and pros­per­i­ty of our peo­ple. It un­der­scores our un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to fos­ter­ing in­clu­sive growth and en­sur­ing that every Ja­maican reaps the re­wards of our na­tion’s bur­geon­ing tourism sec­tor, re­as­sur­ing our com­mit­ment to our cit­i­zens’ wel­fare,” he told leg­is­la­tors.

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, May 1, CMC