The Caribbean island of Jamaica continues to be a popular destination for holiday travelers and second home buyers from abroad according to recent news reports. Jamaica has overtaken Cancun as the third most popular destination for Canadians and is looking to move ahead of both the Dominican Republic and Cuba.
Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism addressed a group of travel industry partners in Vancouver in October. He noted that the number of visits from Canada through September was 190,000, which was the same amount as for all of 2007. He projected that there would be a total of 250,000 visits to Jamaica from Canada by the end of the year and envisioned 300,000 for 2009.
“We are projecting 300,000 persons, because we have the capacity to do it. Even at its present size, Jamaica’s potential is well beyond 300,000 visitors annually from Canada,” he said.
He also pointed out that flights from Canada to Jamaica are scheduled to rise to 53 per week in the coming months. Mr. Bartlett was confident that the current economic crisis would lead to increased opportunity in the years to come because tourism just about always “bounces back and bounces back quickly.”
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