Jamaica Sets The Pace As The Heartbeat Of The World

Jamaica’s new destination brand positioning shows that you can be small but still leave a mighty mark.

Recognizing the out-sized impact the Caribbean destination has made on an international scale, “Jamaica, Heartbeat of the World,” takes a look at how its rich and vibrant culture, music, cuisine, sports, adventure, nature, and wellness have global reach, writes assistant editor, Ann Ruppenstein in this week’s issue of Canadian Travel Press.

“We are excited to launch ‘Heartbeat of the World,’ which reinforces our position as a global leader among travel destinations and establishes Jamaica as the single destination every traveller must experience,” said Donovan White, Jamaica’s Director of Tourism, at the recent Caribbean Travel Marketplace in Nassau. “On the map, Jamaica may seem like a small dot in the Caribbean Sea, but her influence on the world culture is the size of a continent. We are a cultural giant and we continue to have an indelible impact on the world’s food, music, sport, and literature while offering larger-than-life bucket list experiences with extraordinary, talented people.”

White also announced that preliminary arrival figures for 2019 topped 4.3 million visitors, made up of 2.7 million stop over visitors for an average stay of 8.1 days, and 1.6 million cruise arrivals.

“During that period, the destination earnings from arrivals grew by 10.2% to US$3.64 billion, while making a positive net contribution to GDP for the past three consecutive quarters,” he said. “This year is also poised to be a very strong year for Jamaica… the global demand for travel to Jamaica has grown some 76% over the last three years moving from 426 million searches in 2016 to 832 million searches in 2019. By demand what we mean is when an intended traveller searches for a destination with a start and end date of travel, it’s an indication, a purpose search, and we view that as a demand.”

What’s even more impressive, he says, is those searches represent 1.5% of all global travel searches.

“That for us is a massive indication that there is positive outlook and demand for Jamaica,” he said.

In terms of airlift, the island destination has secured 170,000 new air seats, including 68,300 seats from the US and 14,200 from Canada.

For the full story, check out this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press.