The Jamaica Tourist Board’s last release of tourism arrivals to the country is for March this year, nearly three months away, unacceptable for one of the country’s leading industries.
Tourism arrivals in April & May down just 5% on 2019
Data for March from the Jamaica Tourist Board shows the county welcomed 215,789 stopover visitors, some 29 percent less than March 2019. The Tourist Board is yet to release April numbers, but data out of Sangster International Airport suggests that arrivals in April exceeded those for March, to be the best month for the year to date. Indications are that tourist arrivals could be off by just 5 percent from 2019, the year before the closure of the sector back in 2020. Similarly, data indicate arrivals through the Montego Bay airport in May are 9 percent less than in April, some 5 percent lower than in May 2019.
The April and May figures mark a major about turn for the sector. January saw 131,730 stopover arrivals, down 45 percent from the 216,509 they came in 2019 the JTB data shows, with 162,882 arrivals for February, down 36 percent from the 220,046 in 2019.
