Tourism recovery continues for Jamaica

The recovery of tourist traffic to Jamaica from the closure of the industry in 2020, continues robustly with early data showing Montego Bay enjoying a 15.5 percent bounce in passenger movements through the Sangster International Airport, with 469,700 passenger passing through that airport in August this year, compared with 405,800 in 2022 with a 24.4 percent jump for the year to date to 3.64 million, up from 2,925 in 2022 for the same period.
Traffic in August for Kingston was up just 6 percent to 195,600 compared with 184,600 in 2022 and is up 21.7 percent to 1.207 million from 991,700 in 2022. Data was taken from the release of traffic for the various airports operated by Grupo Aeroportuario Del Pacifico, who are operators of both Jamaican Airports.
Traffic to Jamaica is up 15 percent over 2019, the last full year with no disruption with some 406,993 passengers passing through the Sangster Airport while Kingston is 5.4 down on the 205,860 passengers in 2019. Sangster’s, with 3.41 million passing through the airport just under 7 percent ahead of 2019 and the 1.33 million traversing the Kingston down 9 percent below the 2019 numbers.
Passenger movements represent incoming and outgoing passengers, roughly half represent incoming, with those passing through Sangster’s representing the majority of visitors to the island as such it provides a good proxy for stopover visitor arrivals to the country.