Jamaica looking forward to welcoming Canadian visitors again
September 16, 2020
Set to show the world that Jamaica punches far above its weight, its tourist board unveiled a new destination brand late last January to reinforce the country’s position as a global leader among travel destinations.
Nearly six weeks later, ‘Heartbeat of the World’ came to a screeching halt as countries around the world closed their borders because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the deadly virus activating an unprecedented crisis in the tourism economy, sector administrators have had to re-evaluate their brand positioning and messaging.
“Once you enter this kind of space where people’s natural behaviour and movement are adjusted, then the business we are in which is providing a destination and all the amenities that people look forward to and crave for, their inability to travel requires us to adjust how we market the destination and how we provide for visitation to the destination in addition to how we care for those persons and ourselves,” said Donovan White, Jamaica’s Director of Tourism. “So, we have had to pivot in this new norm with not just our marketing, but even just how our product is managed, handled and delivered to visitors when they come to the island.”
Visitors having fun at Treasure Beach (Photo contributed)
In the last three years, Canada has been Jamaica’s fastest growing market. This is a significant reversal from 2016 when there was a sharp and worrying decline.
Last year, there was a total of 395,561 arrivals from Canada.
In a time of uncertainty, White has a special message for Canadians who regularly choose Jamaica as their vacation destination.
“Canadians have always been friends of Jamaica,” he said. “More than 250,000 of them have made Jamaica their vacation destination for years. I can only imagine how difficult it is for Canadians to not to be able to plan their normal travel to Jamaica. What we have been doing is making the destination even more pristine for their return. Jamaica prides itself on having a return visitor rate of about 42 per cent which basically means that every two visitors you see in Jamaica have been here once before. We have visitors from Canada that have been to Jamaica nearly 200 times. We have always enjoyed that kind of relationship not just with Canadian travellers but also our Canadian partners and we want to keep doing the things we do so well to welcome them.”
Romance at Martha Brae in Trelawny (Photo contributed)
Jamaica opened its borders to international tourists on June 15.
Visitors are required to complete a Travel Authorization form online to assess the health risks of all persons intending to travel to the destination.
It’s recommended that tourists stay in the government-designated resilient corridor where they aren’t required to self-quarantine for 14 days.
The corridors are on the North Coast from Negril in Westmoreland to Port Antonio in Portland, on the South Coast from Bluefields Bay to Treasure Beach in St. Elizabeth and Mandeville and New Kingston and its environs in the Corporate Area.
“Jamaica is open and all the hotels that have been approved have all the protocols in place to keep visitors safe,” said Angella Bennett who is the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) Regional Director for Canada. “For now, visitors have to stay on the resorts that have implemented a lot of activities, including water sport activities, exercise classes and nightly entertainment. There is a lot that can be done on the resort and very soon, we will be complementing that with our attractions.”
Angella Bennett (Photo contributed)
Hotel staff undergo daily temperature checks and are tested regularly.
“It is of utmost importance that they are protected and cleared to provide service to guests,” Bennett said. “They are sensitized on the cleaning processes which have changed in every hotel and how they serve guests. Staff have gone through a stringent set of training to deal with the new normal.”
Air Canada Vacation is offering three fights to Kingston and two to Montego Bay weekly from Toronto and WestJet is providing a weekly flight between Toronto and Montego Bay.
Air Transat, Sunwing and Swoop will resume flying to the destination shortly.
During the pandemic, Bennett and her team have been extremely busy.
“I thought that ‘Heartbeat of the World’ was one of our strongest campaigns and it was really ripping the market when COVID struck,” she said. “We had to shut down all of our marketing initiatives and take another approach with our messaging which was, ‘We are here for you’ and ‘We are in this together’. That was the first set of messaging we sent out to the market and our retail partners so they could know we were with them during this very difficult time.”
The JTB Canadian office has been engaging retail travel agents through Irie Hour sessions every Tuesday afternoon.
“We bring to them a very relaxed chill and chat kind of vibe where we talk about the protocols of Jamaica, the new entry requirements, the products in Jamaica that are now open and just the whole COVID environment and how it affects their business and how we can help them,” Bennett noted.
Rafting in Martha Brae (Photo contributed)
Starting last August 13, a new weekly series offering free online training in English and French was launched.
“We are training our agents to sell the new normal of hotels in Jamaica that are approved under the COVID certification,” said Bennett. “They are being trained how to sell it to their customers. We have been training and supporting.”
Shifting from selling the destination to meaningful engagement, JTB hosted a virtual travel update forum and used social media platforms to host cooking demonstrations by Jamaican chefs, mixology, yoga and fitness classes and live deejay parties.
Tourism accounts for almost 34 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
White said visitor arrivals is hovering around 12 to 15 per cent of the usual intake.
“We would love the numbers to be greater, but we understand the challenges and trepidation of persons travelling at this time is great,” he said. “We prepared for this and we are hopeful that the numbers will continue to grow in the coming months, certainly into the fall and winter. Once it gets cold, people will want to get away and we hope we will be able to provide that warm weather catchment for persons looking to get away. For the moment, we are focused on continuing to build and manage our protocols properly to provide the necessary steps and processes to get to Jamaica.”
Visitors enjoying Jamaican cuisine at Treasure Beach on the south coast (Photo contributed)
With travel limited because of the virus, Jamaica – like most countries – encouraged nationals to explore their country.
Launched on July 22, the Rediscover Jamaica campaign featured a strong public relations and social media component with tourism partners showcasing their products.
“The plan was really geared to Jamaicans at home because we felt there were a tremendous amount of Jamaicans who typically travel overseas during summer with friends and family,” White said. “With COVID, a lot of travel has been curtailed. As we were staring at a number of countries that were experiencing spikes in cases, there was trepidation when it came to travel.
“We felt it would be opportune to re-assert ourselves and give Jamaicans an opportunity to experience their own country. In our planning, we have always crafted a Jamaican campaign annually, but we felt we needed to go a bit further this year and really make it special, but more importantly make it so that all elements of the tourism value chain would benefit from it. We did a whole 360 degrees execution of it to ensure that not only Jamaicans would have an opportunity to re-discover Jamaica, but we gave all of our value chain partners an opportunity to participate especially because business right across the economy has been hit.”
Donovan White (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
White said the campaign that ended two weeks ago was extremely successful.
He expects the 30 per cent growth that was set out will be attained.
“There were lots of new-found places across Jamaica by Jamaicans,” White noted. “We have a very diverse product and so we have had to look at how we find those gems and put them to video and message and to be able to communicate them effectively. As a result of delivering this campaign, we have also rediscovered some other things about the destination that we believe that visitors from far afield will find quite interesting. It has been an excellent opportunity for us to introspect, inflect and to really re-position ourselves.”
Visitors arriving at Montego Bay’s Half Moon Villas (Photo contributed)
Nearly 650,000 stopover visitors arrived in Jamaica in the first two months of the year.
In 2019, tourism arrivals – including stopover and cruise arrivals – were 4.3 million.
