Jamaica, the Caribbean island country that bills itself as a place for love, is going to love this news.
The nation is going to be packed for the winter season.
Jamaica announced it's expecting 1.05 million passengers on nearly 6,000 different flights this winter – and that’s just from United States departure cities alone.
It marks a 13 percent increase from last winter with three weeks still left to book before the winter travel season officially begins.
"To date, 10 airlines have some 5,914 flights to Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay and Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston scheduled out of key U.S. gateways between January and April 2024," said Edmund Bartlett, Minister of Tourism, Jamaica.
"This adds to the flurry expected over the 2023 holiday period."
American Airlines leads the way by far with more than 305,400 seats scheduled on over 1,720 flights. Carriers as diverse as United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Spirit Airlines, Sun Country Airlines and Frontier Airlines are also operating flights to Jamaica.
"These numbers reflect the ongoing efforts of the Ministry of Tourism, through the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) as our marketing arm, working alongside our international and local partners in the travel and hospitality sectors to ensure continuous growth in our tourism industry," added Bartlett.
"Already for the period, January to November 29, 2023, preliminary figures indicate that some 2.5 million stopover visitors have graced our shores, accounting for an 18 percent increase over the same period in 2022 and a 10 percent increase over the same period in pre-pandemic 2019."
"If we continue on this impressive growth trajectory, we will be on track to meet our new projections of 4 million visitors and foreign exchange earnings of USD $4.1 billion by year-end," he concluded.
"The Jamaica Tourist Board maintains strong relationships with airline and travel industry partners and we are grateful they have added capacity into the destination this winter," stated Donovan White, Director of Tourism, Jamaica Tourist Board.
"We anticipate a record-breaking winter season in terms of stopover arrivals, which is bolstered by these added seats from key U.S. carriers."
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