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Tourism soaring to new heights
Published: Wednesday | July 15, 2009
Bartlett
The following are excerpts of Tourism Minister Edmund Bart-lett's recent sectoral presentation to Parliament.
Given the significant growth in the accommodation sub-sector and growth in investments for attraction development and the wider tourism sector, we have had to pay very close attention to how we get people to Jamaica. I believe that it is fair to say that Jamaica's positive performance is due largely to our superior airlift capacity.
Our strategy has been a combination of wooing and attracting scheduled carriers, stimulating the market to the point where charters are coming here in record numbers, and repositioning Jamaica Vacations Limited (JAMVAC) to:
Promote and increase airlift of visitors to Jamaica
Support other tour operators serving Jamaica,
Operate in-house charters from selected gateways, develop new markets
Support airlift from targeted markets
This renewed focus will facilitate the thrust of aggressively targeting emerging markets and the development of more robust strategies to acquire adequate airlift from existing European gateways and from emerging markets which we have targeted. The budget allocated to JAMVAC for the year 2008/2009 was J$193 million. Of this amount, JAMVAC used approximately $170 million to continue its programme of risk sharing/seat support as it pursued its mandate to maintain and increase airlift capacity on both scheduled and charter routes.
JAMVAC has already secured agreements with both existing and new carriers, tour operators, and marketing entities to do just this. This support is being provided to markets in Europe, Canada, and the United States. Jamaica now has better than adequate airlift in place for the summer period, with over 1.2 million seats from the US alone. As demand grows, stimulated by aggressive marketing, the Legacy carriers will continue to increase their capacity.
New carriers
We have a number of new carriers flying into Jamaica, as well. JetBlue now offers service between New York and Montego Bay, with excellent connections to upstate New York and to the West Coast. The service is doing extremely well, and JetBlue has announced that it will offer service to Kingston, starting in the fall.
Recently, Air Jamaica added one more flight from Fort Lauderdale, plus two additional flights from Orlando. Those flights will make it five flights each day from Fort Lauderdale and seven flights per week from Orlando.
Funjet will be adding two more flights per week from St Louis, while charter flights from Chicago will supplement those offered by Air Jamaica and American Airlines. Delta is increasing the number of flights to five a day, using larger aircraft, and American Airlines now has seven daily flights out of Miami.
AMERICAN AIRLINES ARRANGEMENT
In the spring of 2008, American Airlines gave notice to all its destinations in the Caribbean that, owing to high fuel cost, the carrier was forced to cut routes in the fall and Jamaica was one of the projected casualties. The American Airlines network is critical to growing our markets to fill the new rooms for 2009, and so we had to move quickly to prevent any cutback in Jamaica's seats, on the understanding that airlift is the lifeblood of our industry.
This led to an agreement with American Airlines to increase service to Montego Bay from two of their strategic hubs, Dallas and Miami, commencing November 2008, and to introduce a new service from Chicago at the end of January 2009. These things normally come at a cost but, fortunately for us and, unlike other destinations, we secured these arrangements only by posting a letter of credit of US$l.5 million per gateway. I am pleased to report that, up to the end of April, after six months of operating, there has been no call on any of these letters of credit. For the period January-April 2009 American Airlines carried 96,660 visitors to Jamaica.
Excellent connections
On the matter of charters, we have increased the number of lifts flying out of Canada, Germany and Italy. We have maintained levels in other countries, including Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. The recent merger of Northwest and Delta will also be a great support for our marketing efforts in China, Japan and India.
It should be noted that that Jamaica no longer has non-stop access to Los Angeles. However, through our partners, visitors from the West Coast of the US still have access to Jamaica through arrangements with JetBlue, for example, that has excellent connections with the West Coast as it serves at least seven airports in California. This is the power of partnerships, and our partnerships work for us. We have great relationships with some of the largest tour operators in the world, and it is our intention to foster those relationships, in order to keep their attention focused on Jamaica. This is our response to the challenge of ensuring airlift.
Published: Wednesday | July 15, 2009
Bartlett
The following are excerpts of Tourism Minister Edmund Bart-lett's recent sectoral presentation to Parliament.
Given the significant growth in the accommodation sub-sector and growth in investments for attraction development and the wider tourism sector, we have had to pay very close attention to how we get people to Jamaica. I believe that it is fair to say that Jamaica's positive performance is due largely to our superior airlift capacity.
Our strategy has been a combination of wooing and attracting scheduled carriers, stimulating the market to the point where charters are coming here in record numbers, and repositioning Jamaica Vacations Limited (JAMVAC) to:
Promote and increase airlift of visitors to Jamaica
Support other tour operators serving Jamaica,
Operate in-house charters from selected gateways, develop new markets
Support airlift from targeted markets
This renewed focus will facilitate the thrust of aggressively targeting emerging markets and the development of more robust strategies to acquire adequate airlift from existing European gateways and from emerging markets which we have targeted. The budget allocated to JAMVAC for the year 2008/2009 was J$193 million. Of this amount, JAMVAC used approximately $170 million to continue its programme of risk sharing/seat support as it pursued its mandate to maintain and increase airlift capacity on both scheduled and charter routes.
JAMVAC has already secured agreements with both existing and new carriers, tour operators, and marketing entities to do just this. This support is being provided to markets in Europe, Canada, and the United States. Jamaica now has better than adequate airlift in place for the summer period, with over 1.2 million seats from the US alone. As demand grows, stimulated by aggressive marketing, the Legacy carriers will continue to increase their capacity.
New carriers
We have a number of new carriers flying into Jamaica, as well. JetBlue now offers service between New York and Montego Bay, with excellent connections to upstate New York and to the West Coast. The service is doing extremely well, and JetBlue has announced that it will offer service to Kingston, starting in the fall.
Recently, Air Jamaica added one more flight from Fort Lauderdale, plus two additional flights from Orlando. Those flights will make it five flights each day from Fort Lauderdale and seven flights per week from Orlando.
Funjet will be adding two more flights per week from St Louis, while charter flights from Chicago will supplement those offered by Air Jamaica and American Airlines. Delta is increasing the number of flights to five a day, using larger aircraft, and American Airlines now has seven daily flights out of Miami.
AMERICAN AIRLINES ARRANGEMENT
In the spring of 2008, American Airlines gave notice to all its destinations in the Caribbean that, owing to high fuel cost, the carrier was forced to cut routes in the fall and Jamaica was one of the projected casualties. The American Airlines network is critical to growing our markets to fill the new rooms for 2009, and so we had to move quickly to prevent any cutback in Jamaica's seats, on the understanding that airlift is the lifeblood of our industry.
This led to an agreement with American Airlines to increase service to Montego Bay from two of their strategic hubs, Dallas and Miami, commencing November 2008, and to introduce a new service from Chicago at the end of January 2009. These things normally come at a cost but, fortunately for us and, unlike other destinations, we secured these arrangements only by posting a letter of credit of US$l.5 million per gateway. I am pleased to report that, up to the end of April, after six months of operating, there has been no call on any of these letters of credit. For the period January-April 2009 American Airlines carried 96,660 visitors to Jamaica.
Excellent connections
On the matter of charters, we have increased the number of lifts flying out of Canada, Germany and Italy. We have maintained levels in other countries, including Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. The recent merger of Northwest and Delta will also be a great support for our marketing efforts in China, Japan and India.
It should be noted that that Jamaica no longer has non-stop access to Los Angeles. However, through our partners, visitors from the West Coast of the US still have access to Jamaica through arrangements with JetBlue, for example, that has excellent connections with the West Coast as it serves at least seven airports in California. This is the power of partnerships, and our partnerships work for us. We have great relationships with some of the largest tour operators in the world, and it is our intention to foster those relationships, in order to keep their attention focused on Jamaica. This is our response to the challenge of ensuring airlift.
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