The Government is projecting gross earnings of US$3.6 billion from the tourism industry for the 2019/20 fiscal year. Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, told the Standing Finance Committee of the House on March 4, that the country is expected to have some 4.584 million visitors for the financial year, with stopover arrivals at 2.875 million and cruise arrivals of...

The second annual Blue Mountain Coffee Festival kicked off on Friday (March 1), with a trade development workshop for farmers, processors and retailers at the University of Technology (UTech) campus in Papine, St. Andrew. The session featured several seminars and networking sessions facilitated by representatives from the Tourism Linkages Network (TLN), Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority (JACRA), Newport- Fersan Jamaica Limited, among...

More than 140 high-school students from western Jamaica were exposed to the importance and impact of local tourism during the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo) ‘Tourism Youth Expo and Career Fair 2019’. The event was held at the Negril Hills Golf Club in Westmoreland on Tuesday, February 26, and falls in line with the Ministry of Tourism’s fifth pillar of...

Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, is projecting that the tourism sector will provide 41,000 new jobs by 2022. In his speech, delivered by Regional Manager of the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), Odette Dyer, at the Hyatt Hotels’ Eminence Staff Awards at the Hyatt Ziva/Zilara Rose Hall Resorts in St. James on February 19, Mr. Bartlett said with the continued unprecedented...

Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, says 2019 is shaping up to become another record-breaking year for stopover arrivals. Preliminary figures for airport arrivals for the seven-week period from January 1 to February 17, show the number of visitors at 320,602, which is an increase of 31,172 or 10.2 per cent over the corresponding period last year. The bulk of...

Governor-General, His Excellency, the Most Hon. Sir Patrick Allen, says that starting 2019/20, the Government will begin offering loans of less than $5 million to micro-sized tourism enterprises. The Governor-General made the announcement during his Throne Speech to open the new legislative year in Gordon House on Thursday (February 14) under the theme ‘In Partnership towards the new prosperous Jamaica’....

With the country’s hotel room stock projected to reach approximately 48,000 by 2022, local food distributor, Caribbean Producers Jamaica Limited (CPJ), is pledging to ensure that the hospitality sector “will always be adequately supplied”. The company’s founder and co-chairman, Tom Tyler, gave the pledge as he addressed the official opening of CPJ’s US$10-million Distribution Centre in Freeport, Montego Bay, on...