Jamaica is waiting to welcome back Canadian travellers
By: Ian Stalker
The coronavirus pandemic and Ottawa’s subsequent moves to keep Canadians home have led to Canadian visitations to Jamaica slumping but the country’s director of tourism is expressing confidence that his homeland will be able to re-establish itself in the Canadian market when Covid-19 concerns ease.
Donovan White conceded during a recent press briefing that “the Canadian market has been extremely soft,” with bookings for the next several months being “relatively low.”
The news hardly comes as a surprise, with the pandemic still going strong and Ottawa this year convincing airlines to suspend service to Mexico and the Caribbean, part of a strategy to curtail coronavirus infections in this country.
Nevertheless, White said he expects large numbers of people from this country to vacation in his homeland once international travel restarts in a major way.
“We’ve been told by Canadian partners that there is demand… We remain pretty confident we’ll have our fair share of the Canadian market,” he said. “When these restrictions are lifted, we are very confident that Canadians that want to choose Jamaica for their vacations will do so.”
Canadians appear to be waiting for Ottawa to give them the OK to travel before booking, he continued.
White several times cited the rollout of vaccines in different Jamaican source market countries as a reason for optimism, and said those in his country’s tourist trade are working “tirelessly” to prepare themselves for a major increase in tourist numbers.
Jamaica began rebuilding tourism numbers last year, among other things creating what it called “Covid-resilient corridors” encompassing the country’s main tourist destinations and which have designated hotels for tourists.
Donovan White
director of tourism
We’ve been told by Canadian partners that there is demand… We remain pretty confident we’ll have our fair share of the Canadian market. When these restrictions are lifted, we are very confident that Canadians that want to choose Jamaica for their vacations will do so.”
Over 40 hotels and resorts on the island are now offering coronavirus testing, a response to governments insisting that their citizens must have a negative coronavirus test before returning home.
“Mobile testing facilities” are found in the tourism corridors, he continued.
Tourists who receive positive test results while in the corridor can quarantine in designated hotel rooms that enable them to have a vacation experience but isolate them from other guests.
White said there have been a “few cases” of tourists testing positive after their arrival.
Jamaica has also unveiled Jamaica CARES, which initially was announced as an insurance program, but has since evolved and may now be viewed as a larger framework for understanding Jamaica’s response to Covid-19.
“Jamaica CARES encompasses our entire destination-wide response to the pandemic, and embodies our commitment to resilience in the face of challenge,” White said. “The program demonstrates to the tourist industry Jamaica’s vision for travel during this pandemic era and beyond.”
The end-to-end traveller insurance component of the Jamaica Cares program is still being developed and a rollout is expected in the coming months.
Jamaica tourist numbers worked their way up last summer and fall but concerns about new coronavirus variants have prompted tourist source markets to bring in new measures to discourage their citizens from travelling, further damaging Jamaica’s all-important tourism sector.
Jamaican tourism had been performing well before the onset of the pandemic.
White insisted that Jamaica is one of the “most Covid-resilient countries in the world.”
White said his government has to create a balancing act between helping a tourism industry that accounts for a huge part of the Jamaican economy rebound and the health of visitors and island residents, ensuring that tourists “have an experience that is safe, seamless and secure.”
The Jamaican government is continually evaluating coronavirus and its impact on tourism, he added.
Jamaica will be stepping up marketing efforts and authorities are making some events that would normally attract visitors to the island virtual this year, including March’s Kingston Marathon and the Jamaica Rum Festival, which White said will virtually take viewers on a a “journey from cane to cocktail.”
Meanwhile, White expressed confidence in the long-term prospects for the tourism industry in general, citing vaccinations now being underway in much of the world.
“What we have seen time and time again is the resilience of our industry,” he said.
