Press Release – Nine Gateways, 400,000 Seats

KINGSTON, Jamaica (November 2, 2026) – Jamaica’s winter tourism season is set for a major lift, with new gateways opening up from Canada and South America now joining the island’s growing list of source markets. The Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, OJ, CD, MP, made the announcement while delivering the keynote address at the 8th staging of the Tourism Service Excellence Awards (TSEA), held on Saturday, October 31, 2026, at the Montego Bay Convention Centre.

Speaking to an audience of tourism leaders, award finalists and industry partners, the Minister said he had just returned from a Canadian marketing tour with news that should reassure an industry still rebuilding after Hurricane Melissa. “I just came from Canada … we have nine gateways, new gateways coming to Jamaica for this winter, 400,000 seats out of Canada for winter this year,” he said. “And we have South America coming.”

Canada is Jamaica’s second-largest source market, and the expanded winter capacity follows added service from established carriers and new nonstop flights from Porter Airlines. The Minister also pointed to growing interest from South America and noted that Europe’s story was already well known. “I wanted to make those points tonight,” he said, “because I wanted you to appreciate that the 42% repeat business that Jamaica has been able to secure has not come only because we have fine products, physical products that is.”

The Minister’s address reflected the thinking behind the Ministry’s Tourism 3.0 framework, which aims to move the sector beyond arrivals and room counts towards a national development platform. It focuses on keeping more tourism earnings in the local economy, expanding opportunities for Jamaicans and investing in the workforce that delivers the product. Airlift is one pillar of that growth plan; service is another.

“The central element of a tourism experience in a destination is service,” Minister Bartlett said, noting that about 60 per cent of a visitor’s experience is shaped by it. “Service has to be not just embedded, but service must be in the DNA of the activities.” He recalled that when the awards were launched in 2008, “we were talking about the new tourism … a whole new idea of how we reposition tourism in the context of the global changes.”

The Minister said Jamaica’s repeat business, now at 42 per cent, is the result of how the industry has treated its people. “It’s not because we have impacted global aviation in the way we have. Not only because we are thought leaders in so many areas, but because we have managed the human capital within tourism in an exemplary way,” he said.

Minister Bartlett placed the latest recovery in the context of Jamaica’s history of bouncing back. During the global recession that followed 2008, he said, Jamaica grew tourism by three per cent every year for three years, “and we stole market share” while other destinations were “capsizing, rightsizing and downsizing.” In 2016, the country set a “five by five by five” target of five million visitors and US$5 billion in earnings in five years. By 2019, he said, Jamaica had reached 4.1 million visitors and US$3.67 billion in earnings, “right on the edge,” when COVID-19 brought the industry to a standstill.

“We woke up one morning, and all the hotels were closed, and the planes stopped flying, and the ships stopped sailing, and the visitors stopped coming,” he recalled. Yet by 2023, he said, Jamaica had surpassed its 2019 performance and increased tourism earnings by US$700 million to US$4.3 billion. Hurricane Beryl in 2024 and Hurricane Melissa in 2025 have since tested that strength. “And now we are on another recovery path, and we are recovering,” he said.

The Minister highlighted initiatives aimed at giving tourism workers security and mobility. He noted that the Jamaica Centre for Tourism Innovation (JCTI), established in 2017, offers stackable credentials so that skilled workers “who didn’t have any paper can now get paper,” with international certifications that make their qualifications portable worldwide. He added that United Nations Tourism has drawn on Jamaica’s training and certification arrangement with the American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute.

The Minister recalled meeting a 78-year-old worker pushing a luggage trolley at the airport in 2010, who told him he had to keep working because “if I don’t, I won’t have anything to eat.” “Something is wrong with that picture,” he said. That encounter led to the Comprehensive Tourism Workers Pension Scheme, which now has 11,000 members and J$6 billion in savings. Work is also underway on housing for workers and on health insurance options.

The Minister also previewed what he described as the final element needed to close the “resilience gap”: the absence of cash for workers to rebuild after a disruption. He said discussions with partners in Saudi Arabia are exploring a parametric insurance arrangement for tourism workers that would anticipate disruption and trigger a payment “on the basis of science and what the technology as well as the data suggests,” followed by a final payment for recovery. “It’s called parametric,” he said. “And that’s something that we would be innovating in Jamaica.”

Bringing the message back to the evening’s purpose, Minister Bartlett said recognizing service excellence is central to how Jamaica competes. “Celebrating service in the way we are tonight, highlighting excellence in the way we are today, is not something we’re doing because we want to make a show or a PR activity,” he said. “It’s something that is endemic in the product itself and is a critical part of Jamaica’s presentation to the world as a destination where you can have a safe, secure, and seamless experience.”

The Tourism Service Excellence Awards, presented by the Ministry of Tourism and the Tourism Product Development Company Limited (TPDCo) under the theme “The Chosen Gems of Jamaica,” recognize and reward tourism entities and workers who deliver superior customer service. The 8th staging belatedly honoured the 2019 finalists following delays caused by COVID-19 and Hurricanes Beryl and Melissa.

Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, addresses guests at the 8th Tourism Service Excellence Awards on Saturday, October 31. Fresh from a marketing tour in Canada, the Minister announced nine new gateways and 400,000 seats out of Canada for the winter season, with South America also joining Jamaica’s growing list of source markets.

Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, delivers the keynote address at the 8th staging of the Tourism Service Excellence Awards (TSEA) at the Montego Bay Convention Centre on Saturday, October 31. The Minister told the gathering that service must be “in the DNA” of tourism, noting that about 60 per cent of a visitor’s experience is shaped by it.

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For further information on these developments, please contact:

Marline Stephenson Dalley 

Coordinator, Corporate Communications and Community Awareness

Tourism Product Development Company Limited 

Email: marline.stephenson@tpdco.org 

Tel: 876 550 0733