Jamaica's Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said the scheduled return of cruise ships across the ports of the island in mid-November was a strong vote of confidence by major stakeholders in the country.
According to Bartlett, arrivals were climbing, airlift for the winter cruise season was looking good, and the winter schedule would be very busy.
A number of cruise ships are scheduled to dock in Port Antonio, Ocho Rios, and Falmouth.
The minister added that cruise was an integral part of their tourism product and a major driver in terms of visitor arrivals and expenditure.
The world's largest cruise company, Carnival Corporation & plc, committed to sending 110+ cruises to Jamaica between October 2021-April 2022. That will be ~200,000 cruise passengers.
The second-largest cruise company, RCI-Royal Caribbean International, is restarting limited operations to Jamaica this month.
Bartlett added cruise executives had "reiterated a strong desire to employ thousands of Jamaicans and are awaiting government regulatory amendments to make it a reality."
He expected that by the end of the year, just under 300,000 cruisers will visit Jamaica.
“We have been heavily marketing Port Royal to our international investors during our various marketing engagements overseas. During our meeting with TUI, they disclosed several planned visits and calls on the Port Royal Cruise Port, starting in January.”
There will be 5 cruise calls from January to April 2022 in Port Royal (Kingston Jamaica) and discussions are currently underway with key partners in Dubai (Port Rashid) regarding investment plans in the tourism product of Port Royal.