Jamaica House Campaign Has Opened Doors in China – Dr. McNeill

Minister of Tourism and Entertainment, Hon. Dr. Wykeham McNeill, said the Jamaica Tourist Board’s (JTB) successful publicity campaign in Beijing, during the world track and field championship in August, has placed the island in a position to more aggressively target the Chinese market.

The campaign dubbed: ‘Jamaica House’ was set up to showcase the island. It provided a base tour operators, travel agents and airline operators to sell destination Jamaica, while cheering on the athletes.

“It was very successful in that (people) came (and) it gave us an opportunity to educate them about Jamaica and to make relationships…so at the end of the day it opens the door,” Dr. McNeill told JIS News.

“When you put that against the backdrop of last year, with us being able to do away with the visa requirement for Chinese nationals coming to Jamaica, we are now in a position where we can truly market Jamaica in an aggressive way,” he added.

Dr. McNeill told JIS News that increasing Jamaica’s presence in the Chinese market “in a real way” will take some time, as there are issues to be addressed including getting flights into the island and increasing brand awareness.

He noted that with China soon to enter the Caribbean airspace with flights into Cuba, Jamaica will be looking to capitalise on the opportunity under the banner of multi-destination marketing and travel.

“They are opening their flights to Cuba…and even then that flight has to stop in Montreal. There are issues we have to deal with, but we did communicate with them about doing multi-destination travel with passengers that are coming on the flights to Cuba and what the opportunities and possibilities are,” he said.

The Minister noted, however, that “above all, we have to work on the awareness of brand Jamaica. At present, our athletes have opened a door for us…but there is so much more we have to teach about – our culture, our music, our food. So there is work to be done and we have started that work.”