Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Jamaican Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett said that Caribbean tourism is continuing its growth and the country have welcomed more than a million tourists in this year than the last year.
According to the research data compiled by Caribbean Tourism Organization, for the first six months the region welcomed 16.6 million international tourists, or 800,000 more than in the first six months of 2016, constituting a growth rate of 5.2 per cent.
He added that though there are many challenges in fostering tourism still Caribbean tourism continues to grow at record pace.
The tourism sector in the region was able to overcome early projections of downturn in global tourism receipts for 2016 — amid volatility and uncertainty in main source markets such as the USA and parts of Europe owing to Brexit, the US presidential elections, travel ban and terror attacks in Brussels and in other European cities — to grow at an unprecedented rate of 4.2 per cent in 2016.
In fact, Jamaican Minister of Tourism Bartlett said that the projection for Jamaica is well set to welcome four million arrivals for the year by next week. The Tourism Minister recounted that, the 2017, the resilience of the tourism sector in the region has already been tested with the passage of hurricanes Irma and Maria, which affected 13 of the most tourism-dependent countries in the region. The countries affected include St Martin, Anguilla, Dominica, Barbuda, St Barts, the British Virgin Islands, the US Virgin Islands, Turks & Caicos, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.
