Jamaica Nearly Gets Double-Digit Increase in High Season Cruise Totals

Jamaica Nearly Gets Double-Digit Increase in High Season Cruise Totals

Jamaica benefited from a nearly double-digit increase in cruise ship arrivals during the 2010-11 winter season, the country’s tourism minister announced April 20. An additional 34,954 vacationers arrived in Jamaica via cruise ship during the country’s high tourist season, which ended April 15. The total number of cruise ship arrivals -- 398,772 -- represents a 9.6 percent increase over the same period in 2009-10.

Overall arrivals during the period grew by 5.6 percent, said Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s tourism minister, to 743,776 visitors between Dec. 15, 2010, and April 15, 2011, from 704,320 hosted during the same “high season” period in 2009 to 2010.

“The stage is now set for yet another remarkable year of performance in terms of arrivals,” Bartlett said. The strong cruise numbers follow a recent decline in Jamaica’s annual cruise totals, which dropped by 1.4 percent to 910,000 in 2010. Jamaica recently opened a $220 million, two-berth port cruise port project in the north coast town of Falmouth in partnership with Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and the Port Authority of Jamaica. In all, the island hosted 1,142,548 visitors during the period, up 7 percent from 1,068,137 visitors in 2010.