A grow­ing num­ber of T&T na­tion­als have been choos­ing Ja­maica as their des­ti­na­tion of choice and more par­tic­u­lar­ly, Roy­al­ton Hide­away at Mon­tego Bay.

In a one-on-one in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Shawn Moses, the ho­tel’s res­i­dent man­ag­er, said the ho­tel con­tin­ues to see a high num­ber of vis­i­tors from this coun­try.

While plans for Roy­al­ton en­ter­ing the lo­cal mar­ket are still on the cards, Moses how­ev­er said, “I would love to see a Roy­al­ton in T&T. We have been asked that ques­tion a lot but who knows, you could nev­er tell.”

It is easy see why Roy­al­ton Hide­away con­tin­ues to re­tain a high at­trac­tion rate as it is an ide­al set­ting; whether it’s a hon­ey­moon, an an­niver­sary or just a qui­et get­away.

Since open­ing about six months ago, Moses said it has had an av­er­age of 88 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy rate or even high­er.

“Every week­end we are full and that’s be­cause our lo­cals be­lieve in the brand so much that they give us a lot of busi­ness. We al­so do a lot of group busi­ness, wed­dings, meet­ings and spe­cial events which we are known for,” Moses added.

While Ja­maicans love Roy­al­ton, the ho­tel con­tin­ues to be fre­quent­ed main­ly be tourists.

“And that’s be­cause of how we mar­ket and po­si­tion our­selves,” Moses at­test­ed.

This adults-on­ly prop­er­ty fea­tures el­e­gant­ly styled suites, world class reser­va­tion-free din­ing and ex­cep­tion­al ameni­ties.

Ac­cord­ing to its fact­sheet, the ho­tel has 352 mod­ern, lux­u­ry rooms and suites, un­lim­it­ed reser­va­tion-free din­ing, un­lim­it­ed in­ter­na­tion­al and lo­cal liquors, Roy­al­ton sig­na­ture DreamBed with high-thread count sheets, all-in con­nec­tiv­i­ty with free high speed wifi re­sort wide for all de­vices. The ho­tel al­so of­fers 24/7 room ser­vice, a fit­ness cen­tre with mod­ern equip­ment, dai­ly en­ter­tain­ment and night­ly shows, non-mo­torised wa­ter­sports and the Roy­al Spa.

The ho­tel al­so re­mains pop­u­lar with the UK, US and Eu­ro­pean vis­i­tors, Moses said, not­ing that they make up the ma­jor­i­ty of in­ter­na­tion­al guests.

There are cur­rent­ly five Roy­al­ton prop­er­ties in Ja­maica and re­gard­ing what’s next for the brand, Moses said, “You can ex­pect a lot more in terms of cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence and you can ex­pect even greater cus­tomer ser­vice. You can ex­pect more of that per­son­al care and at­ten­tion from Roy­al­ton Re­sorts.”

In­deed, this is a re­flec­tion that Ja­maica is se­ri­ous about be­ing ser­vice-ori­ent­ed and by ex­ten­sion its tourism prod­uct and as these el­e­ments are fur­ther ev­i­dent through­out the is­land with its many cam­paigns and slo­gans to en­tice trav­ellers.

The coun­try’s 14 parish­es are des­ig­nat­ed among six re­sort ar­eas, each with its own unique vibe, sig­na­ture at­trac­tions and di­verse ameni­ties.

From the stun­ning scenery at Ocho Rios to the breath­tak­ing beach­es at Mon­tego Bay “MoBay,” Ja­maica presents a mag­nif­i­cent dis­play of ex­pe­ri­ences.

Guardian Me­dia was in­vit­ed by the Ja­maican Tourist Board to cov­er its Glob­al Tourism Re­silience Con­fer­ence (GTRC) which took place from Feb­ru­ary 15 to 19, 2024. The con­fer­ence was held at the Mon­tego Bay Con­ven­tion Cen­tre (MBCC).

Apart from the many is­sues dis­cussed about build­ing tourism re­silience, Fiona Fen­nell, pub­lic re­la­tions and com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at Ja­maica Tourist Board spoke to Guardian Me­dia about how the is­land’s tourism of­fer­ing con­tin­ues to thrive.

Post-COVID, she said Ja­maica has done and con­tin­ues to do ex­cep­tion­al­ly well, not­ing that in 2023 it wel­comed over 4 mil­lion vis­i­tors, earn­ing US$4.2 bil­lion.

“So that tells you we are mov­ing ahead, we are get­ting to full re­cov­ery from the pan­dem­ic,” Fen­nell added.

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty has al­so re­mained a key fac­tor in Ja­maica’s tourism con­cept.

In a 2022 ar­ti­cle ti­tled, “Chart­ing a More Sus­tain­able Course for the Tourism In­dus­try,” Ja­maica’s Min­is­ter for Tourism Ed­mund Bartlett not­ed that for des­ti­na­tions like Ja­maica, sus­tain­able tourism prac­tices are es­sen­tial for en­sur­ing the long-term health of the ocean and its ecosys­tems, as well as for pro­tect­ing the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties and economies that re­ly on valu­able tourist dol­lars.

Fen­nell fur­ther ad­vised coun­tries to look at how they can “re­ori­ent” them­selves to achieve their re­spec­tive sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals.

“We have to in­stil in all our cit­i­zens the im­por­tance of pro­tect­ing our sur­round­ings, our en­vi­ron­ment and the plan­et, es­pe­cial­ly coun­tries like us who are heav­i­ly tourism de­pen­dent.

“It starts from the child and teach­ing them the im­por­tance of pro­tect­ing the spaces around us,” she em­pha­sised.

Tech­nol­o­gy al­so plays a big part in tourism and in the quest for growth go­ing for­ward.

In giv­ing a prac­ti­cal ex­am­ple, Fen­nell said the Ja­maican Tourist Board is cur­rent­ly in the process of digi­tis­ing all of its con­tent from its li­brary so that it too, is en­gaged in sus­tain­able prac­tices by us­ing less pa­per as well as be­ing or­gan­ised in one space.

“I think there is room for that in every oth­er as­pect of tourism in what­ev­er we are able to make more seam­less and dig­i­tal,” Fen­nell added.

Fen­nell de­scribed Ja­maica as a tiny coun­try, which “punch­es above its weight.”

“We are a well-loved and recog­nis­able brand through our mu­sic ... every­body loves Reg­gae mu­sic, loves Bob Mar­ley and our scenery. We have some­thing for every­body,” she said, smil­ing.

There is so much more to Ja­maica-an is­land of ap­prox­i­mate­ly three mil­lion in­hab­i­tants-than its beach­es and wa­ter­falls such the fa­mous Dunn’s Riv­er Falls and Park which is 0ne of the is­land’s at­trac­tions, near Ocho Rios, on the north coast.

Among oth­er at­trac­tions is the Rose Hall Great House, which is pur­port­ed­ly haunt­ed due to be­ing the home of the in­fa­mous “White Witch” An­nie Palmer.

It is a Ja­maican Geor­gian plan­ta­tion house which is now run as a his­toric house mu­se­um. It is framed by the Ja­maican moun­tains.

As far as gas­tron­o­my goes, Ja­maica’s very name is syn­ony­mous with jerk, which is one of the best rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Ja­maican cui­sine. The fa­mous Scotchies Jerk Cen­tre apt­ly show­cas­es this as its vast ar­ray of well-sea­soned meats are com­mon­ly cooked over a char­coal fire in large “jerk pan” which is placed on top and cov­ered with zinc sheets.

“Miss T’s” Kitchen is an­oth­er culi­nary gem nes­tled in the heart of Ocho Rios with sig­na­ture dish­es like the melt-in-your-mouth ox­tail stew.

And so, the pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less when one vis­its this third largest is­land in the Caribbean Sea, af­ter Cu­ba and His­pan­io­la.

In re­sponse to the chal­lenges posed by the pan­dem­ic, Ja­maica em­barked on an am­bi­tious tourism re­cov­ery ini­tia­tive in 2022, kick­ing off with their renowned “Come back” cam­paign and for cer­tain, easy to see how Ja­maica can quick­ly beck­on one to re­turn to its sheer en­chant­ment.

From the very start, even up­on ar­rival at the Sang­ster’s In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Mon­tego Bay, right up to the farewell at the Nor­man Man­ley In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Kingston, the team from the Ja­maican Tourist Board in­clud­ing Se­drecia Fran­cis, its me­dia re­la­tions of­fi­cer in their Mar­ket­ing Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit as well as Sicour­ney Jack­son and Aneif An­der­son all epit­o­mised the essence of Ja­maica-vi­brant, em­brac­ing, beau­ti­ful.

It is def­i­nite­ly worth a “come back.”