PAX On Location: JTB says 76% of visitors to Jamaica book through a travel agent

Jamaica has seen a steady intake of Canadian visitors over the past few years, and the Caribbean country may have the travel agent community to thank.

According to Dan Hamilton, acting regional director for the Jamaica Tourism Board (JTB) in Canada, more than 76 per cent of visitors to Jamaica claim to have booked their vacation through a travel agent.

“Travel agents are an important part of our distribution channel,” Hamilton told PAX in Montego Bay, Jamaica, last week. “Regardless of what’s going on with all the other ways we can book these days, travel agents are our partners in this.”

Caribbean Travel Marketplace 2019

Hamilton was in Jamaica as part of Caribbean Travel Marketplace, one of the Caribbean’s largest travel marketing and conference events.

Hosted by the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) at the Montego Bay Convention Centre from Jan. 29-31, the conference and trade show welcomed more than 1,000 hoteliers, destination reps, wholesalers, tour operators and travel agencies.

Spotted on the trading floor was Jeanette Faria, Canada’s director of marketing for the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority, who said the event is great for securing valuable face-to-face time with industry players.

“It’s a great opportunity to meet with Canadian operators and airlines to talk about Canadian business, how things are going, and how we can work together,” Faria told PAX.

More lift to Jamaica from Western Canada

According to a report released by Visit Jamaica, just under 400,000 Canadians visited Jamaica in 2018, representing a 0.3 per cent increase compared to the previous year, with 42 per cent of the total being repeat visitors.

Hamilton said Jamaica’s goal is to grow business by 10 per cent this year by adding more direct lift from Canada, especially in the country’s western regions.

“Everyone wants non-stop direct,” Hamilton told PAX. “We’re trying to get more of that.”

READ MORE:  3 game changers that happened in Jamaica this week

The regional director said he’s particularly interested in adding more lift out of Calgary with feeders from British Columbia, in addition to targeting regions in Northern Ontario and further east in Quebec City and Halifax.

Sudbury, ON, was one community that got the Jamaican treatment last year as Sunwing added a new seasonal flight to Montego Bay from the Northern Ontario town. The direct service, which started in December, operates on Thursdays and will continue to do so until April 11th, 2019.

Hamilton said he want to “increase the desire’ for more Canadians to visit Jamaica.

“Jamaica is not new. It’s been around a long time,” he said, noting that Canadians will begin to see more advertising for Jamaica this year on television and elsewhere.

A great year for Jamaica

Jamaica, overall, had a “phenomenal year” in 2018 with an 8.6 per cent growth in revenue generated by tourism, said Donovan White, director of tourism at the Jamaica Tourism Board.

Speaking to press at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, White said Jamaica’s strategy is to “embrace our five pillars of growth,” which focuses on experiential travel in the areas of gastronomy, sports and entertainment, health and wellness, knowledge and cultural tourism.

White  noted that 2019 will see the completion of two Kingston-based hotels: the refurbished Wyndham and the opening of the AC Marriott, a new hotel by Sandals Resort International.

Jamaica is set to construct 3,000 new hotel rooms by 2021, after the island's Minister of Tourism, the Honourable Edmund Bartlett, recently secured an investment of $750 million USD between H10 Hotels and Princess Resorts.

“Five hundred of those rooms will be available in November this year,” White said.

The new Princess hotel will be located in Trelawny, a parish in Cornwall County in northwest Jamaica. “That will be a sight to be,” White told reporters. “The drawings are phenomenal.”

Stay tuned for more of PAX’s ongoing coverage from Caribbean Travel Marketplace.

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